So the syndication plugin I’ve been using to pull content in from the Scout weblog appears to be broken; the errors it’s throwing don’t make any sense and the error messages are little or no help. Which sucks.

I’ve been streaming The Civil War at work over the last couple of days, and finished up with the first episode yesterday. I didn’t see the series when it first aired (I was living in Baltimore with a black and white TV and couldn’t pull the PBS signal in with rabbit ears) but wow, what an impact that had on me. I’m now quite fascinated with the subject. I’ve been thinking about reading material for the beach, and was settled on the middle three of the Harry Potter books; I think I’m going to add The Killer Angels to the list. Some of the trivia from the war is fascinating: For example, consider Wilmer McLean, on whose property was fought the first battle, and in whose parlor at Appomattox, four years later, the surrender documents were signed.

I’m no closer to brewing my next batch of beer, but I may activate the yeast tomorrow morning to see if it rises by the time I get home. I’d like to get this batch fermenting as soon as possible, because the recipe says it’ll be 4-5 weeks. It also calls for double fermentation but I think I’m going to skip that part. Last weekend, Brian helped me remember that the Hefeweizen extract I’d used came from a friend of his, and must have been at least five years old by the time I cooked it. So I don’t feel so bad about that batch being so lousy. I’m just going to buy a six-pack of something good and pour out 3/4 of the hefeweizen so that I can reuse bottles for the new batch.