I got a little bummer news at work this week; one of my long-time employees is leaving us at the end of November for a great opportunity elsewhere in D.C. She’s been with us for three and a half years, and while I always am aware that no job lasts forever, I’m sad to see her go. She was nervous about telling me, but I assured her I was happy for her, and I wanted only the best for her and her career. At the same time, I was able to get another of my designers switched over from contractual to open-ended employment after over a year with our organization (long story), so we had an upbeat Friday after I gave her the good news. We’re planning a farewell sendoff/celebratory dinner the week after Thanksgiving, and hopefully she’ll keep in touch after she gets settled in the new gig.
As reported here, the Scout meetup went well. What didn’t meet with success was my visit to the alignment shop to install caster correctors; after waiting across the street at a Starbucks for three hours I walked back over and was told the mechanic tried for two hours to get the spindles off my steering knuckles with no success. Rather than break my truck, he backed off and told me he wasn’t charging me anything, which was solid of him. At the meetup I talked to another friend who had the same work done, and he referred me to a older mechanic in Dundalk who loves Internationals and may be able to help me with the situation. I’d much rather drive to Dundalk and work with a greybeard than a 22-year old tweaker at a 4×4 shop, which is what I was faced with before.
On Saturday evening Jen and I met up with a cancer buddy, a real nice lady who we met in during radiation treatment at Hopkins. She was in for radiation on her larynx and our schedule overlapped for the whole time I was in treatment, so we got to be waiting room buddies. We’ve all connected on Instagram and she’s recovered stronger than I have. We met up at the Guinness brewery and she gave us big hugs and we sat at the bar and caught up. So far we’re both one year clear and we celebrated with some dinner and laughs. It’s inspiring to see other people kick cancer’s ass and keep moving forward.
The shelf project is going well; I’ve got fronts and sides glued and tacked on to the MDF. Now I’m sorting out how to hang the hangers on the wall with the most support possible; what I’ve got are T-shaped brackets with two holes on either side, about 4″ apart. That’s enough to anchor one screw into a wall stud, but the other screw–4″ away–will be going into plaster and lathe. I don’t feel comfortable with that yet. I did buy a cheapo Harbor Freight drill press so that I can drill the holes in the shelves straight and level, but the bracket question still needs to be solved. [Sips beer and thinks…]
Speaking of beer, I tapped my session grapefruit IPA on Sunday evening, and…it’s not bad! The hops are definitely stronger than the real recipe but balanced out with the grapefruit, this isn’t a bad beer at all. And it’s great to have something on tap again.
Jen is always a tricky woman to buy Christmas presents for. She really doesn’t want for much, at least, not in the way of stuff, so it’s hard to find just the right thing for her every year. I’ve taken to writing down gift ideas in February so that I don’t forget them in November. Two years ago I was super-romantic and bought her a 40 gallon fish tank to replace the yard-sale sourced starter tank she was working with. She was surprised and it went over well, I think. Last year sucked ass but I was conscious enough through pain meds to buy her a couple of items from Emily McDowell, including a tote bag emblazoned with the words “Groceries and Shit” in beautiful hand lettering.
This year she’s asked for several house-related things, including some shelves for the living room. We’ve had a blank wall in there for years, waiting for some mystery artwork to appear, but she’s sick our shrine to emptiness and asked me to make something to mount to the wall to put stuff on. I looked around Amazon and found some invisible hangers for shelving, and Sunday Finn and I hit the Home Depot for supplies. We got a sheet of 1″ MDF and cut it down to 4′ x 4.5″, then glued and double-stacked four sheets for two shelves. Next I’ll be cutting down a 3″ furring strip and mounting it to the front for a slipguard. When the mounts come in I’ll drill holes and set them up staggered on the wall so that there’s some space on the end for something tall.
Another thing she’s asked for is if we can finally finish the woodwork in the office and den. Sometime between the installation of the front porch windows and the big side window, Lowe’s/Home Depot stopped carrying the equivalent cap molding to our windowframes in stock. This is somewhat short-sighted, because I’d wager EVERY HOUSE IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD uses this same cap molding. I’ve looked into setting up a router jig and making it myself, but I’d probably spend several thousand dollars on the jig and I’d honestly much rather have a finished bathroom. I found a woodworking shop over in Glen Burnie who I’ve been told can make this molding for me, and hopefully it won’t be too expensive, because I need 65+ linear feet of it.
I spent a little time kegging beer last night. My intention was to get the grapefruit IPA in the cooler, but for some inexplicable reason I transferred the session IPA and added grapefruit extract to that instead. So it’s going to be an intense batch of beer. I doubt it’s ruined but now I’ve got to figure out what to do with the base beer for the original grapefruit batch–it’s probably a lot milder than the session, so it won’t be as good on its own. Looks like I might wind up with two grapefruit batches instead of one, unless I decide to dry-hop this batch for flavor.
I spent a good chunk of the weekend grading my first class project. Friday night I reviewed work, looked over their files, and filled out a checklist for each project. Saturday morning I fed that into a spreadsheet which averages the score from the checklist and converts that to a letter grade, and from there I adjusted up or down based on attendance. Saturday evening I filled out most of the comments at the bottom of each grading sheet (because what are grades without feedback?) I built this system after realizing how time-intensive grading is during my first semester, and it’s paid off really well.
My brewing neighbor texted me from the homebrew store over the weekend. I had him pick up a kit for me and goaded him into setting a date, Tuesday after work, to finally get together and brew. As soon as I made it home I had the Scout packed with my gear and began setting up under the pavilion in his backyard at 7:30; by 10 I was pouring wort into my carboy and cleaning equipment. This batch is a Session IPA, which I’ve done before and enjoyed very much. I was hoping for a saison or maybe a bock for my second keg, but they didn’t have much selection in the premade kit inventory.
Meanwhile, over the weekend I racked the grapefruit IPA into a new carboy and dry-hopped it according to the recipe. I’m going to go a little easier on the grapefruit this time, as it was a tad strong the first time around, but otherwise the recipe is the same.
It will be a shock to have not one, but two beers on tap after a drought of over a year.
The week after I replaced the hood on the CR-V, it decided to show its appreciation by stranding Jen in Baltimore City, on the way to pick up a friend for dinner. She said the clutch locked up, and she was unable to shift into or out of 2nd gear. She was able to pilot it safely to a side street and call me; I arranged for a tow truck through USAA and they picked it up a little over an hour later. Our mechanic can’t seem to find the problem but did find that the gear oil was very low. There’s no noise coming from the box and two short trips I’ve taken since then have been painless; this could mean nothing or it could mean the clutch is about to shit itself. Only time will tell, I guess. The mechanic hinted that it would be wiser to buy a new car instead of fixing this one, but we have a large amount of loyalty for this car and I’d much rather keep it on the road than absorb a new car payment.
I’ve had a Flickr Pro account since 2005, when I decided I’d use it for my image hosting CDN. It’s been very useful over the years, even as it’s been bought and sold, and as they’ve added useful features and then taken them away. I’ve found, however, that I’m not using it all that much anymore. The last photos I uploaded there were from the camping trip in June, and everything after that I’ve uploaded directly into WordPress. I’d guess there are a couple thousand photos I’ve linked to over the course of 4,672 posts, and for now that’s fine. I am thinking about the future, however, and at some point I’m going to have to go through each post and update the photo with a local version (as well as fix a bunch where the links have broken). Not today, though.
My IPA stopped fermenting on Thursday evening, so I have to rack it into a secondary fermenter as well as dry hop it. My neighbor picked up another kit for me yesterday and hopefully we will be brewing this evening, but he hasn’t nailed down a time yet. It feels good to have a batch in the works, and it would be even better to have two in the kegerator by Thanksgiving. It also got me thinking about some of the gear I’d like to update next year–a better burner, a slightly bigger kettle with a temperature gauge, and maybe some upgrades to the kegerator itself. But for now, what I’ve got is working well and I’m just happy to be brewing again.
Meanwhile, the crops in the greenhouse are winding down. There are still many black and red cherry tomatoes on the vines, and there’s a second wave of Indian Stripe and Paul Robesons growing slowly, but the whiteflies have really damaged the plants. There aren’t a lot of green leaves left on anything so I don’t know if any of the remaining fruit will ripen at this point late in the season. I’m going to replace the back wall in an effort to keep the heat inside and start winterizing things.
Jen’s birthday was back in August, and I completely dropped the ball on her. I didn’t have anything planned, and at that point I was still on a limited diet so she didn’t see the point in going out for dinner anywhere. I should have come up with a Plan C but completely failed her, and I’ve felt terrible about it ever since. I decided I’d try to make it up to her in some small way by arranging a spa day someplace fancy, and enlisted Karean to help me with a recommendation. We agreed on About Faces in Annapolis, and I arranged for a four-hour treatment with lunch for the two of them. In the meantime Finn had a double-header soccer day, because they missed a whole weekend on account of the rain.
I packed Finn off in her soccer gear and Jen left for the spa. The Purple Panthers kind of got their asses kicked in the first game, but Finn had one good half before she ran out of gas. There’s a mixture of fourth, fifth, and sixth graders on the teams so the skill levels are wildly different and the younger girls are generally much less aggressive than the older ones. As we got in the truck to head home between games, she asked me if we could skip the next game because she didn’t want to play. I did my best to buck her up and pointed out that her teammates were counting on her to come back. Then I reminded her that all I wanted her to do was have a good time. Then I sweetened the deal with a donut–to be eaten only after the second match.
The second game was mostly a repeat of the first, but the score was a little closer. She stuck with it and made some good stops on defense. As I ran across the field to hand her water bottle over at halftime, she called back to me, “I’m having a good time, daddy.” That made me feel better, and the parents on the other side of the field with me all smiled as I walked back over.
Returning home I farted around with some small repair stuff on the Scout and around the house, then rustled up some dinner for the ladies when Jen got home. Apparently the spa was a hit; she came back relaxed and feeling good.
Sunday morning I hit the lawn early and hustled to clean up the yard so that I wouldn’t embarrass us in front of the father of one of Finn’s friends, who asked if I could show him how to homebrew. After the lawn was done I set up a table in the backyard, dusted off all of my equipment, got a new propane tank, and cracked a beer as he was unloading his car in the driveway. We got his turkey fryer repurposed to cook wort and fired up the burners by about 2. His burner took a long time to come to a boil, but the staggered timing worked in our favor because I could show him what I was doing with my kit and get it chilled while his was starting. When mine was done we moved his kettle to my burner and finished the boil. By about 6 we had the gear packed up and were shooting the shit over our final beers, and he took off to get dinner. I humped my carboy down into the basement and let it cool off overnight before adding the yeast. It’s another grapefruit IPA I meant to brew for the summer, but time and the summer got away from me. Actually, during the boil I realized that the last time I brewed beer was the day Rob passed.
After dinner, we put Finn to bed and I walked over to the neighbors’ to watch the Ravens beat Pittsburgh on the big screen in his backyard. That was an excellent way to cap off a great weekend.
The American Homebrew Association released a list of 50 commercial clone beer recipes today, sized for 5-gallon batches.
Northern Brewer was the place I got my first beer kit after I started homebrewing. They have been the source of most of the recipes I’ve used, and a lot of the gear I’ve purchased. Mr. Scout told me today they’d been bought by Anheuser-Busch Inbev, which is the equivalent of having your kid’s lemonade stand bought by Pepsi.
A-B Inbev has been buying large, established breweries for years and consumers have complained that they’ve watered down the recipes and lowered the quality of the ingredients. I drink craft beer because the taste is superior to that of giant megabreweries. I brew my own beer for the same reasons. I can only hope that Inbev doesn’t use its huge market position to water down Northern Brewer’s quality as well. In the meantime, there’s always Austin Homebrew Supply or my local brewing store.
This weekend was long and productive. It started out with a spectacle: Cinderella the musical was playing at the Hippodrome in Baltimore. All three of us got churched up in our fancy clothes and we drove into town for the evening. The show was fantastic–the script was updated for modern audiences, but Rodgers & Hammerstein is timeless. The cast was outstanding and the whole production was fun and energetic. At several points during the show I looked over at Finn, who was on the edge of her seat, eyes filled with awe, and knew that Mama had done right by getting tickets.
Saturday morning we rose and cleaned the house in preparation for a sleepover with one of Finn’s friends, for which she was very excited. Beds were made, toilets scrubbed, rugs vacuumed, and rooms straightened. Finn had a soccer game at noon, so we worked up until it was time to leave and then got her to the field with minutes to spare. She worked really hard during the game and even though her team lost by a goal, she played ace defense and ran her legs off on offense. We stopped for some groceries, grabbed a celebratory donut and headed back home. From there I took the Scout to Lowe’s to load up on lumber while the girls went shopping for some new fish.
Back at the house I unloaded the truck and lit a fire in the pit, then got to work building a third firewood cradle. By dinnertime I had it in place and filled with another half cord of wood while the girls played in the yard. Around dinnertime the Geblers stopped over with Bear. We all hung out in the backyard as the sun went down, and I loaded up the grill with dinner. We all ate our fill and stayed up way past our bedtimes; the girls went down with only a peep at 11PM.
Sunday morning we rose early and I helped put a pancake breakfast together with Jen, then headed back outside to put a fourth cradle together and stack the remaining wood. After I finished that task, I turned the Ravens game on the radio through the garage speakers, dragged my brewing equipment outside, and put a grapefruit IPA recipe on the burner that I’ve had sitting around since June. It was the perfect weather for being outside with a fire; 60˚ and sunny all weekend. I’ve got piles of bark from the split wood laying around that I thought I’d never find anything to do with, but it turns out bark burns pretty well–and fast. I made the first pile disappear by Sunday afternoon, and made a dent in the second pile at nightfall. I doubt it will be that comfortable outside again this year, but I’m glad I took full advantage of it.
This morning I fired up the Scout and got to work digging out the rest of the hedges in the front yard. We got sidetracked last fall after the sewer pipe incident, and so we’ve been living with half a moustache since November or so. It was pretty easy work, given we’d had rain on and off all day yesterday, turning to snow (!??!?!) and then a light frost this morning. The ground was damp and 4WD was in full effect, which meant I had them all out in about two hours.
Jen and I spent about a half an hour measuring out our yard so that she can map it out with graph paper; our lot isn’t actually a rectangle, but a parallelogram so that as you see the house from on center above, the property line shifts to the right as it goes back. We still have no real idea where the boundaries are, and we’ll need to have someone come out and mark it for us, but for this year we can get away with what we’ve guesstimated in the front yard.
I brewed my 33rd batch of beer with my neighbor last weekend. We brewed the same recipe, followed the same times, and brewed at the same temperature, but the only difference is that I poured my wort over ice to chill it while he used his copper chiller. We’re going to keep everything the same and do a taste test to see if using commercial ice to chill has any effect on the flavor. I’ve been using ice because it’s easy and cheap to do, but one of the mantras of brewing is that your beer is only as good as your water. I do have a chiller but I don’t have a pump to move water yet; a trip to Harbor Freight is in order this spring no matter what the results are.
Another quick project this weekend was to rebuild my light tent to be more portable and less of a giant pain in the ass. It’s been broken down for a couple of years now, but comes in handy every once in a while–so that it’s not worth getting rid of. It was originally set up at 4′ x 4′ but I reduced it to 3′ x 3′ and added two sets of cheap hinges to fold it into itself so that it packs away for easy travel and storage.
I had no idea the Maryland Historical Society was writing such excellent pieces. This one is about the lost breweries of Baltimore, from Gunther’s to National.