Jen and I ventured out to the AT&T store today to have our individual plans combined into one family plan. Some back of the envelope math revealed that we’ve been paying too much individually when we could combine our bill and get a decent discount. The representative at the store suffered from an annoying speech impediment, so understanding what she was telling us was difficult at least. What we saw on the initial bill changes drastically when the phone company adds all of their taxes and fees and charges and double-secret fines, so our takeaway is that we might save some money, but we might not save a whole lot. It remains to be seen.
While we were there I pulled the trigger on a new 64GB iPhone 6. AT&T has three different ways to buy a phone: the standard subsidy model, the buy-it-outright model, and something they call AT&T Next, which is supposed to be geared towards a two-year upgrade plan, but seemed like bullshit to me. The rep couldn’t explain it well enough for me to understand, so I opted for the subsidy. Of course, they didn’t have a phone for me to take home, so I’ve got to wait until the middle of this week to have it delivered. In the meantime I’m going to have Amazon send me a case, because I’ve heard they’re very easy to drop on their own. Then my trusty, slow 4s will be unlocked and sold on Craigslist, where it looks like I can get anywhere from $125-175 for it. It pays to take care of your equipment.
I sat down with my UMBC advisor on Saturday and went over the synopsis of the class, which seems pretty cut and dry. I’m still a wee bit nervous but I think it’s going to be good. My one worry is the amount of time I’ll need to spend on the road, which is going to take me away from the office at a very busy time. We’ve been going nonstop since last summer, and it’s going to take a lot of work to keep on top of everything.
Meanwhile, I’ve got to brush up on some reading and find some bits of inspiration to offer the class. The heavy hitters will be
Thinking With Type, Ellon Lupton
Designing With Type, James Craig
Canon, Massimo Vignelli
There are many more I want to add here; I need to spend some time going through our library and pick out some other heroes.
Peer Pressure got run up for the first time in two weeks on Saturday, and I took her downtown and back (a short trip). My intention has been to get out into the garage and get some work done on her, but it’s just been too goddamn cold.
I brewed a batch of Conundrum Session IPA last night, which went smooth and easy, up until the point I ran out of ice. I made up the rest of the water amount with our Brita pitcher and set it out on the back porch to cool down for an hour, which did the job pretty well. This batch has 3 oz. of hops, which means the bottom 2″ of the fermenter is nothing but sludge. Hopefully the yeast will kick in tonight and I’ll get a replacement for my current keg going.The Irish Stout hasn’t moved since I brewed it in November, so I’ll transfer that to the secondary this afternoon and clean up the pail. And I think I’ll buy a Hefeweizen kit this week and get that one started so that the kegs are full and fresh when the weather starts warming up.
Part of owning a home is the reality of constant repairs, and part of that is seeing the flaws in things you’ve worked on in the past. One of the things that’s been bothering me for years is the way the edges of our mantel haven’t matched up with the rest of the facade as a result of the way I built it. Now that the rest of the room has a clean coat of paint, the mantel stood out in even greater relief, and temperature and humidity changes have cracked the bondo I used to cover the seam several years ago.
When I put it together I didn’t allow for the top to be wider than the rest of the box, due to changes in the plan while it was being constructed. I’ve been thinking about fixes for this issue for eight years now, and I bought a sheet of veneer from Amazon last week with the aim of fixing it before Thanksgiving.
The first step was to sand down the face with a random orbital sander, which went easily enough. I figured I’d simply apply a layer of glue to the box and then lay the veneer over top of it, then place bracing across the face to hold it in place. Using our heavy-as-bricks coffee table/chest, I built bracing out of 2″x3″ and put things in place.
After letting that sit for about an hour, I checked on it and was alarmed to find a huge bubble in the middle, as well as warping on each end. Fearing I’d never be able to get it off after it dried fully, I pulled the whole sheet off in two pieces and started researching plan B.
Several YouTube videos presented a different solution: the unorthodox approach of spreading the glue over both pieces, letting it dry, and then using a clothes iron to heat and activate the glue. So, I went back out to get different glue and set things up. First, I sanded the box clean again, then applied two coats of glue to both pieces with a rubber Bondo spreader.
In the meantime, I put four new IKEA chairs together, which should supply sturdier seating for our Thanksgiving guests. For years, we’ve been using a mixture of two old rickety oak chairs and our desk chairs for dinner, which is unappealing and unsafe. The new chairs are remarkably similar to our current chairs–they look like slightly shorter cousins, which is better than we could have hoped for.
Then it was time to bust out the iron. Starting at the center, I worked my way out to the left and then the right, using a damp rag to add some steam to the wood. It worked out better than I’d hoped. Once I went around the edges to make sure there was nothing peeling upwards, I hit the whole thing with 150 grit paper and cleaned up both the veneer and the woodwork around it.
Then I used my chop saw to trim both overhanging edges so that the veneer was as close to the box as possible. Using a piece of sandpaper stapled to a long flat board, I smoothed the edge out flush to the box.
I did some more cleaning with sandpaper and a sharp chisel, and then used caulk along the top and the bottom to seal the edges. I’m going to let it sit and cure overnight, and then hit it with primer tomorrow evening before applying two coats of trim paint to match the rest of the mantel.
While I was working in the area, I sanded down a bunch of raised cracks in the wall on either side of the mantel bumpout and hit them with a skim coat of drywall mud; they’ll get sanded smooth and painted at the same time as the box.
The other thing on the menu for tomorrow evening is some brewing. I bought an Irish Stout and another session IPA, and I think I’ll get the stout working first for Christmas and then do the IPA to replace what’s in the cooler. I haven’t had two beers on tap since early summer, which is a sad state of affairs, but it’s mostly due to the last of the Belgian Dubbel taking up space. I may just bottle the last of that and clear the keg out.
I finished running wiring in the garage last week so that one switch inside the door now controls four lights, which makes a huge difference out there. It’s easier to be out there and not trip over extension cords hanging everywhere, and it makes me want to rip the rickety workbench out completely and start building a newer, better one with storage and organization. I’ve got some stuff to move out of there (an old cast iron sink, a box of slate shingles, old dumbbells) and some roof repairs to make (shingles on the far side are disintegrating) but it’s getting a lot more usable.
Finally, there’s something exciting afoot professionally, the details of which I’ll keep quiet until I know more.
What we are tasting in a pumpkin pie is actually the huge load of sugar dumped into it along with the allspice, cinnamon, clove, vanilla, ginger and other spices. I’ve read where some brewers talk about how much pumpkin puree they use per batch, but they get coy when you ask about the sugar and spice. It’s essentially “pumpkin pie beer”.
Bob Brewer on Pumpkin Beers and Halloween, from the Anchor Brewing Blog.
I transferred my Session IPA to the secondary fermenter last night, took a gravity reading (4.5% ABV-perfect), and dry-hopped it with twice the recipe’s ingredients: 2 full ounces of Simcoe. I went back and forth on whether I should stick with the kit recipe, which called for one ounce, figuring I’d only had three glasses of it before it was killed on Parade day and I never really got to sample it in detail. But then I said fuck it and dumped the second one in. Let’s see what happens.
Sunday morning I woke up with a slight hangover to the sound of Finn’s voice. She was asking if we would play chess with her, having set up the board while we were sleeping. We’d had friends over Saturday night for drinks and dinner, with emphasis on drinks, and both Jen and I were feeling the effects in the morning. It was my turn to get up, so I made some coffee, organized the board correctly, and we got to playing. She played four games, trying to make sense of the rules, but quickly got better with each. Later in the day, I started rolling white on the walls in the living room, covering over brown paint that dates back to 2006.
Saturday’s schedule called for a soccer game but it was cancelled due to rain. At the local Marshall’s, we found a raincoat for Jen and I found a down coat for the winter, a new fleece, and a sweater. We used the afternoon to clean up the house and prepare for our guests.
The week at work was very busy, which makes this three-day weekend that much more appreciated. Among other large projects, I found myself about five feet from Al Gore on Wednesday evening, running second camera video for a friend. We launched the US version of the New Climate Economy report on Friday, where I shot stills, and then went across town to attend a lunch seminar on infographics with some very interesting speakers.
The update on my yeast is good. It finally started working on Thursday morning and it’s been burbling ever since. The recipe says it only needs two weeks to be done, but I’ll probably transfer it next week and leave it in the secondary for another two.
Huh, how did I miss this? Deadspin has been doing a series called Drunkspin where they review beers from far and wide. I’d have to agree with their assessment of Pumking: Too much spice, not enough flavor.
I was worried that I’d cooked and killed my yeast when I activated it the other day. The idea is to wake it up in a warm bath of clean water and then add it to the wort; I misjudged the speed at which our simmer burner could heat 1/2 cup of water, and it got up to 100° before I pulled it off. I added it on Monday but it wasn’t doing anything until late last night, and this morning there was about an inch of krauzen on the top of the fermenter. Usually by this point it’s spitting bubbles out of the airlock. If there isn’t more of a reaction by tonight I’m going to go get some replacement yeast and throw it in for good measure.
As much as I love the smell, feeling, warmth, and challenge of building and tending a fire in our fireplace, the vortex-like draw from the flue chills the rest of the house down to subzero temperatures. This will change, possibly, after we replace our windows and plug drafty holes, but that’s a long way off.
Pique The Incontinent has been pissing on the front porch carpet to register his displeasure with the litter cleaning schedule. While I’m pleased it wasn’t on my bead, it got to the point where opening up the front door unleashed an almost physical wave of cat stink, like being punched in the face with a boxwood plant. We adjusted the cleaning schedule and decided to pull up the carpet for good, as no amount of remover would actually remove the smell. The carpet came up easily, and the padding underneath did too, but then we were faced with lovely white and green adhesive tile, which is almost certainly held together with asbestos, hantavirus, and lead-based glue. I put an order in on Amazon for toxic particle filters for my mask, and will resume careful demolition next weekend. Under the tile is some kind of useless fiber-based sheeting, and below that is the original grey deck planking. Hopefully the wood isn’t swiss cheese under the sandwich of cancerous building materials.
Saturday evening we attended a beer-pairing potluck dinner with friends. Jen accepted the challenge and made a delicious lemongrass soup (tom kha) to pair with a wheat beer, and the rest of the meal finished up with provencal chicken and roasted lamb. We drank lots of fantastic beer, ate wonderful food, and returned home completely stuffed.
Sunday we were invited to an afternoon party at one of Finn’s new schoolmates’ house, where we found ourselves outnumbered by Irish expatriates handing us fresh Bloody Marys–THESE ARE OUR PEOPLE. Within about ten minutes we felt completely at home among their friends, who could not have been more welcoming, and after our host busted out fresh brisket (from his backyard smoker, naturally), we knew we would be fast friends. Finn was tired out from Saturday night but rallied and played among the other kids; I had to pry her hands off the side of the car to get her to come home.
I’ve had another Session IPA kit in the basement for two and a half months, and haven’t had anything new in the kegs since right after the Fourth of July, so I carved a couple hours out on Saturday to brew it up on the burner outside. Everything went smoothly, and I got it in the fermenter cleanly but about 20° below optimal temperature, so I waited until Sunday evening to add the yeast. I may have heated it up a little too high when I activated it, but we’ll see if it starts working this evening. Next up, I think I’m going to do an Irish Stout to replace the last batch I did (which is down to a six-pack) and then maybe an ale of some kind to get through the winter.
I’ve been enjoying having Hefeweizen on tap for the last two weeks, but obviously, I have much more sampling to do, according to this list.
Hmm. i don’t know how much I agree with some of the choices on this list, but, Deadspin wrote a list of 18 Overrated Beers.