It's torture

Since the beginning of August (± several days), I have had three beers on tap. I have a pale ale, a dark lager and a saison. All fine beers.

About a month ago, I found out my brother was going to be in town during this coming weekend. Since he is an enjoyer of beer, I figured I would save some for him. Easier said than done.

I've spent the last several weeks doing my best to ration my beer. This has been challenging... no actually it's been torture. I enjoy drinking my beer, but I've abstained. I've limited myself to one (or two) beers every few days. I think I should have enough.

Thankfully, my local neighborhood liquor store is closing to make room for a CVS pharmacy. They've been selling everything dirt cheap. I've taken advantage to the tune of 2 cases of wine for $3 a bottle. Not bad.

Long story short, I should have enough beer to share with my brother, but it wasn't easy. I'll be sure to remind him of that.

.

stupid, stupid, stupid....

I have brewed over 115 batches of beer in my homebrewing career. I would like to think I know what I am doing. Recently, I brewed a partial mash rye ale. I was excited because I had never brewed a batch with rye in it.

I have a large kettle in which I can boil about 4.5 gallons of wort. After boiling the wort and chilling it, I dumped it into my carboy. My carboy has a mark on it to indicate 5 gallons. After dumping the wort in, the liquid level was about a half-gallon OVER the mark!!!!

I spent several minutes trying to figure out how I had made a gallon of liquid out of nothing. Maybe I had somehow acquired divine abilities. Sweet. What should I do first with my powers?

After thinking for a few minutes I realize what has happened. I didn't create matter. I forgot to dump the sanitizing solution out of the carboy.

Stupid.

To return or not to return

With the recent rash of delinquent bloggers returning to active blogging, (see here, here, here and maybe even here) I've asked myself if maybe I should return to blogging on a more regular basis.

hmmmmmmmm, what to do, what to do?!?!?

Nah, I'm just going to stay here and keep blogging at a local high school. .. Unless, three of my fellow blog buddies would like to fly out here and talk me into returning.

Or, you could just offer me $20 million.

Just popping in for a bat.. I mean bit.

I'm not really coming out of blogging retirement, but sometime things just need to be shared with the world[1]

Apparently, some dude in the Minneapolis area decided to go all NRA on a bat in his house. While it got the job done, it also got him in a bit of trouble. My favorite part was when he sent his wife upstairs to be safe. I'm pretty sure bats fly near the ceiling which happens to be the floor of the upstairs. Brilliant.

[1] assuming the 'world' is the 3 of you that read this.

Why I love living in Minnesota

Today was the day. The day Spring done went and sprung here in God's country.

This morning the trees lining the river valley were brown. By the afternoon, there was an obvious green color covering the valley.

The sudden appearance of green is what makes Minnesota great. We endure harsh winters for this very day and the many that follow.

Now, if I can keep the freakin' rabbits away, we should get to enjoy a few nice tulips in a couple weeks.

Random thought as I randomly post sporadically

In the USA, yesterday was census day. Stand and be counted. I must admit, I still need to send in my census stuff. The USA Today published some interesting data on census participation. How does your state stack up? Notice that the highest participation rate is for states in the Midwest! Horray Midwesterners!!!! We are so responsible.

But, I was wondering. Where do these percentages come from? Let's review some math.

A percentage is mathematically described as the part over the whole times 100. In this specific example it is the number of people that responded divided by the total number of people in the state times 100.

But wait, the purpose of the census is to count the total number of people in the state. How can the percent be calculated if the total number of people isn't even known?

One equation with two unknowns cannot be solved.