I sat down on the bed to check my email after lunch. Sam and bebop both decided that it was good time for a nap.

Looks like I be stuck.

We have lost one of the pivotal authors from my childhood.

I remember reading Juristic Park, on a camping trip with my parents. I was 10. The book had a big impact and influenced my career choices - not towards paleontology (as you might be thinking), but towards math/computers. You see, the coolest person in the book was a mathematician (Ian Malcolm) AND the most evil was a computer programer (Dennis Nedry).

After JP, I remember reading The Andromeda Strain, Sphere and Congo.

But, Crichton real power was as a gateway drug to the harder stuff from authors like William Gibson and Neal Stephenson.

You will be missed.

It has been just over 2 weeks since Jamie and I spent the day picking grapes.

The buckets were kept upstairs where the ambient temperature was warmer. Each day, I would open the buckets and punch down the pomace that had risen to the top of the must. At first, the whole room smelled like bread+rotten fruit (sorry ’bout that sam). As the fermentation began to slow, the aroma turned fruity+alcoholic.

Yesterday, I finally got my hands on the carboys. Racking the wine this first time took forever. Grape skins and seeds kep getting stuck in the siphon. I should have strained it first.

Ever since I got my /5, I have wanted to dress it up for Halloween. It has a rack behind the seat that would be perfect for  jack-o-lantern. Unfortunately until 2008, I have either been out of town, or teh bike has been broken.

So, this year - the bike was working fine. I hooked up a pumpkin (foam) and added a highpower LED with switch. Everything looked great…

So of course the bike gets a flat right before the 31st :(

It’s the time of the year to stock up for winter. A poor season and ethanol subsidies kept the price of corn high for a long time. Finally it dropped to 5/$1.00. So, we grabbed/shucked/cooked/de-kenneled a hundred ears.

Would have prefered 10/$1 :)

There are some tremendous grape vines growing on the south side of my house. The vines were planted years ago by my landlord and each year we get buckets of concord, himrod, and canadice grapes. Usually, we make a little juice or jelly and let the rest go to the birds. This year, Jamie and I decided to take a chance on wine.

Took most of the day to pick, de-stem and crush grapes. A press would have expedited the process, but we did fairly well with just a colander and an old pot. At the end of the day, we had 22 gallons brewing. 12 of concord, 5 of candice and 5 of a medially (mixed). This should produce at least 50 bottles of … something. Each brew was a different color. I will add the yeast tomorrow.

If it seems to be brewing well - I will come back and add the recipe.

DragonSlayer (super easy mini mash) recipe:

Slightly modified version of Greydragon’s recipe.

Ingredients

(for approximately 12 gallons)

• 6 lbs - Wheat Malt (grain - we used 5.5lb white +1/2lb “special-b” for flavor)
• 6 lbs - Amber Unhopped Malt Extract (liquid)
• 6 lbs - Light Dry Malt Extract (dry)
• 3 oz - Boiling hops (Hallertau)
• 1 oz - Finishing hops (Willamette)
• 2 tbs - Gypsum powder (for clarity)
• 2 pkg - Yeast ( Wyeast 2206:Bavarian Lager and 1214:Belgain Ale - for separate carboys)

Steps to success

Get a big pot for mash. Add cracked grain and gypsum to about 7 quarts of water @ 160 degrees. Maintain for 1 hour @ 155 degrees. Strain out grains and rinse (sparge?) with 5quarts of water @ 170 degrees. Bring to a boil. Add all the extract (liquid and dry) and the boiling hops. Boil for 30 minutes. Add finishing hops during last 2 minutes of the boil.

Fill clean carboys with cold water. You need enough so that water + condensed malt = 12 gallons. After evaporation, we had about 3 gallons of malt - so each of our 5 gallon carboys got 3 gallons of cold water. Add hot malt mixture. When temps get reasonable add the yeast.

For yeast we experimented a bit. I used a traditional ale yeast, but Jamie insisted on a bavarian lager. The 3rd carboy received a mixture of the two… What will happen?

Some of those last pictures are from bottling a previous brew “Hop-Scotch Ale”. It was a long night.

My talented friend Jamie has started building Bakfiets (dutch style cargo bikes). The cycles feature  a large box for hauling groceries, kids, concrete, whatever and are popular in Europe and South America, but hard to come by in the US.

The bike you see here is one of his working prototypes and was recently featured at the Oregon Manifest bike show. It has also received a fair amount of press online:

• Bike Portland article (This is the 3rd time Jamie’s been featured here)
• Tree Hugger feature
• Even a Wired Blog Article
• EcoVelo blog mention
• Metrofiets website

He brought the bike by on Friday and I got a chance to take it for a spin. Even with a full load, the bike is smooth and easy to pedal in city traffic - thanks to internal gears, disk brakes and other modern features. The beautiful lines and whimsical color are also a real head-turner.

I am usually not much of a football fan, but we got free tickets to last nights Ducks vs. Bruins homecoming game in Eugene. The seats turned out to be fantastic (box seats) and the game had the requisite amount of excitement (bad calls, major injuries, ect…)

Sam is looking over my sholder and bugging me to write more.

So here are the vital stats:

• People we went with: Sam and I, Porch, Sue Bomber, Jessica and Brandon
• Oh, an I had fun :)

Ripe tomatillos = salsa verde time!

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