Home brewing adventure

After I bought my brewing supplies, it was a few days before I made it to my local supermarket to pick up five gallons of 'soft' cider. I have never been more excited about a trip to Cub Foods.

On the day before Christmas Eve, I carefully sanitized all my stuff and poured the apple juice in to my fermentation bucket. I kept the plastic jugs to use for bottling the hard cider when it's done. I stirred some yeast nutrient in with the juice, put the lid on the bucket, and whacked a "smack pack" of yeast. Next morning, the plastic package was swollen with hungry and activated yeast molecules. I opened the bucket and tossed in the yeast. Then I sealed it up again and we left home to celebrate Christmas in four locations over the course of two days.

When we returned home, there was no discernible activity in the airlock; in other words, it didn't look like fermentation was happening. Had my yeasts fallen asleep while we were away? We bought a fancy new room heater to warm my brewing area up to the recommended minimum temperature, and the yeast woke up again. As of yesterday, it was happily fermenting in the juice. After a month or so in primary, it should be all done turning into hard cider, and it'll just take some time to clarify and mellow out before it's ready to drink.

Heavy bottle, classy wine

When I saw the label to the left pop up on my favorite wine blog, I scratched my head. Where have I seen that before? I wondered. It looked very familiar, but I could not figure why until I remembered that I won a bottle of Ex Libris as 1/6th of my grand prize case of wine. There's still a bottle of the stuff in my own cellar. Now that it has been given the official Dr. Vino nod of approval, I bumped it up to top pick for Christmas dinner wine.

I promised to provide tasting notes for Dr. Vino since he was kind enough to run a contest and ship the wine my way. I'll let you know how it goes down with the in-laws, but I guess he already knows what he thinks of it: "seize it now and give in abundance," he says. 'Tis the season for giving, after all.

But what shall I bring for the bottle of white?

Wind power: it's now or never

From the always-entertaining and educational Consumerist, I was directed to this list of 25 Gadgets That Actually Save Money, which ends with a link to the Skystream residential windmill company. Doesn't the windmill look cute up in that photo, just humming away? When I build my Earthship, I'm going to want one of those. Sure, it's a lot of cash up front, but it pays for itself after 12 short years!

Applecraft: home-brewed hard cider

Setting aside, for the moment, plans to put video game controllers in guitars or pick locks, I took the plunge in a new hobby. I decided to brew hard cider and got myself some fermentation supplies from Northern Brewer as an early Christmas gift!

Home-brewing beer is cool, but it's also complicated. You've got all those ingredients, all those steps, and all that equipment. So then I thought about distilling me some rum, but that's even more difficult and probably illegal? But the first issue of craft zine set off my imagination along the lines of authentic hard cider. Supposedly it's different and better than the commercial stuff, which makes it worth the time (I can already buy good beers and rum). Best of all, it's cheap and easy! Take your apple juice, add yeast and time, and you've got some cider! If all goes well, some friends will be drinking bottles of homebrew for next Christmas.

My next big project?

I'm toying with the idea of trying this conversion. I'm itching to do something new with my hands again. In the past couple of years I've learned how to fix bikes, type Dvorak, and knit. Why not turn a full-size guitar into a wireless Guitar Hero controller?

Maybe the biggest strike against this plan is the fact that I read through the build notes, and I have no idea how to do 90% of the steps. But I'm dauntless. Undeterred. I've been there, baby.

My last challenging mechanical project was a bike conversion. When I started that job, I knew maybe how to change a tire. When I finished it, I'd reconstructed an entire bicycle. It subsequently became my favorite ride, but that's beside the point. The main goal of a project like this is to learn things along the way, regardless of the outcome. The work is rewarding in its own right. If I do pull it off, then aside from the educational value and the time spent doing something productive, I've got a piece of functional art. There's nothing wrong with that.

There's no rush, so I figure I can take my time in gathering the materials and tools before I go past the point of no return. The first step is to find a suitable host body. By the way, musician friends, don't cry for the instrument in the photo: it's a Squier Bullet and is probably more valuable as a videogame accessory than a guitar. I'll probably have to hit up the local pawn shops and thrift stores to find a cast-off that will do the trick. But just in case, has anyone got a broken electric guitar lying around that they could donate to the cause?

each clump of symbols is a brief, urgent message--describing a situation, a scene.

We Tralfamadorians read them all at once, not one after the other. There isn't any particular relationship between all the messages, except that the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep. There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time.

--Slaughterhouse-Five

Best beer game since Tapper?

"In Beer Tycoon you build, staff and manage your very own brewery. Invent new beer recipes from dozens of available ingredients, set them into production, create market leading brands and distribute them to your customers."

If only you could drink it, I'd be sold.

No Coast Craft-o-Rama

The Craft-o-Rama is today! Isn't this a lovely poster by Miss Amy Jo Hendrickson?

We attended a sneak preview of the show last night, and it was looking very impressive already. Today they will have live music and a RollerGirls kissing booth. Yes I am sure they will have other things, but that is what caught my attention.

We did some Christmas shopping, but it may not be safe to disclose any details here. However, we also bought some items for ourselves, which I am only too happy to write about in graphic detail. At this very moment, I am rocking a pair of Cricket Syndicate underwears, emblazoned with the image of an awesome pirate ship. (In a buy-one-get-the-second-one-at-half-price barter, I snagged some Juliana Theory briefs to keep in reserves.) Also, SPC sweethearts Stomp-N-Thrash sold me a sweet Sailor Jerry button.

I meant to buy a deck of illustrated playing cards from Lonny Unitus but I forgot. I'll buy one from you at next year's Craftstravaganza, Lon! Speaking of which, the prep for our own fair is rolling smoothly ahead. Applications ahoy!

Liveblogging the sprint to NaNoWriMo victory

7:04 - Starting word count: 43,076. 6,924 words to go before midnight. I've got my coffee with sugar and a piece of toast with peanut butter for breakfast.

8:26 - Got my first thousand words and then some. Switched from Antonio Carlos Jobim to Poison the Well. The original last-day plan called for a day off and a leisurely wrapup. Instead, I'm going in to work and taking Lola to the vet at noon (something wrong with her left hind leg). I am all about the added challenge this year! (word count 44,524)

9:45 - Two thousand words down. Stavesacre to Appleseed Cast. I'm trying to pace myself so I don't run out of words before I run out of story. Less than five thou to go now. (word count 45,115)

10:17 - At The Drive-In is on now. I'm on call for work this morning, so the goal is to write as much as possible before I need to go in this afternoon. (word count 45,418)

10:27 - My main characters totally just had sex. (word count 45,606)

11:42 - Double-decker muenster/pepperjack sandwiches, grilled to perfection: The Brunch of Novelists. I'm more than half done for the day, which means I'm closer and closer to my 50,000 word goal for the month. I need to bring our puppy in to the dog doctor and then go to work, but I'm in a good position to wrap up in time to watch E.R. tonight. (word count 46,664)

1:23 - Time to head in to the office for the afternoon. I'm ending my efforts for the first half of the day with a word count of 47.330.

6:12 - I'm back, mother grabbers! And I've got my novel writing cap on.

7:23 - word count 47,936. That stretch was tough. It's sad writing a death scene for my main character! I had kind of grown attached to her. Now, on to the denouement. The rest should be easier, I think, let's see if I can wrap it up soon.

7:36 - Broke 48,000. I like those round number landmarks.

9:14 = the end.

A New Hope

It's been a bad month for me, computer-wise. First I fried my Windows partition with a nasty virus. So, I wiped my secondary hard drive clean and switched it over to Ubuntu Linux as a temporary replacement OS. Last night, I somehow managed to destroy all that stuff by accidentally deleting the entire file structure. Of course, I had not learned from my mistakes and created a backup, so nearly everything was lost again. Against all odds, I managed to pull it together and create a new website for the 2007 Craftstravaganza!!.

All other consequences aside, the worst part was losing bits of my novel-in-progress along the way. When Windows went down, it took my first 5,000 or so words with it. This was bearable and I hoped to clean the infected files at some point in the future and possibly recover it all. I happy continued writing from where I left off in my Linux system, until it was hilariously also botched, irretreivably losing all my files.

So, at this point, I've written over half of a novel, but it's 26,792 words that I will never see again. I was already falling behind schedule, so I thought about giving up on NaNoWriMo and decided... damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead, I'm going to finish this thing anyway! I will start over tonight and refer to the rest as "The Lost Chapters." It'll be like Episode IV, jumping into an epic story with a beginning that nobody else has seen (and which might be better off that way). Despite these tiny setbacks, I shouldn't even break a sweat. 23,208 words in ten days? Pah! I've written an entire book in less time than that.

Apollonia NO!

Totally read this comic!

A defunct Dotonbori institution

Rarmen restaurant: 1970-2005?? R.I.P.

Stiff Little Fingers - Suspect Device

Boing Boing posted some classic punk videos that I am enjoying. The crowd shots are my favorite part of this video. This was a time before 1-inch buttons were invented. A simpler time.

Bike Kill 2005 THE SEQUEL

Double feature! Click for the original Bike Kill.

End Times for the Grease Pit neighborhood bike shop alleycat party

d00ds I guess 2:30 at the bench is all you need to know if you do these things on a habitual basis. Bike down and show your support for a community resource for West Bank cyclers. I'll be the one on the single speed Batavus Monte Carlo going really slow and looking lost because I'm a St. Paul boy and I am not hip to the 612. Don't miss it...

I posted this at the Sibley Bike blog too. It needs some love.

Lock picking for fun

I have just chosen a new hobby to pick up after finishing this year's novel: Locksport! Lockpicking seems like a good practical skill just in case I'm in a tight bind and need to pick a lock for some reason. It goes in my category of stuff to learn next to hotwiring and sign language. Remember, you can pick your nose, and you can pick your friends, but you can't pick your friends' locks (unless they give you permission first).

p.s. (Christmas is coming up and this would make a nice stocking stuffer)

Writing life

I'm posting here more than I expected on account of the new approach I'm taking to the novel writing process this year. I've done it and won it (written 50,000 words in a month) for the past two years, but both those were kind of a crazy rush. 2004 was the first year I attempted NaNaWriMo, and I wasn't even sure if I could do it at all. That year was all about sleep-dep and intensive focus on the writing. As it turned out, I finished really quickly so I probably didn't need to do that after all.

Last year I wasn't even sure if I would end up doing the novel and then wrote the thing even faster than the first year. This time around, I'm trying to take it easy. My challenge for 2006 is to write the novel and maintain a normal life at the same time. 50,000 words is still a goal, but it's not my main priority.

So far, this plan is working out just fine--I'm on track with over 2,000 words per day--and I dig it. Frequent breaks make the writing go easier and I get inspired by doing real things as a real life person. Under my new plan, I've had time this month to visit old friends, attend a party in Minneapolis, and meet new neighbors down our block. Weirdly, I actually feel more active, outgoing and energetic than I do in a normal month. If this year goes well, maybe my challenge for next year will be to write a draft that's actually good!

My computer is hosed

Image from Express

Thank Linux for Ubuntu! Windows has been basically demolished by some kind of virus/spyware attack that I've been fighting for a couple of days, until this morning I remembered that I have a startup disk for an operating system that is friendly and virus-free! I booted up my Ubuntu Live CD and decided to give up on Windows for now while I get back to work on my novel. As soon as I figure out how to install plugins, I'll get that word count updated.

look here!

WriMo has begun.

There'll be no further postings until my 50,000 word draft is done, unless I get inspired or hit by a car and forced to give up. LOOK HERE for fancy info word count etc. If you so crazy that you're doing it too (Annie? How's it looking this year?) for sure let's add me as a writing buddy ok! I'm off!