I got back this afternoon (Sunday) from a really nice Thanksgiving holiday with my family. It started Tuesday after getting home from work. I packed up the car and got to bed somewhat early. I wanted to get to sleep earlier but I ended up turning off the lights between 10:00 and 10:30.

I set my alarm for 1:40 AM, showered, made coffee, let the dog out, and started driving around 3:00 AM. This lets me miss all of the holiday drivers and worked out pretty well. I got to Toledo around 9:00 AM.

The new car was great on the highway and I was really able to load it up with stuff. One large greyhound and the requisite lounge area and space for him to standup, his kennel, two suitcases, laptop bag, wort chiller, stainless steel brew kettle, 15 gallon garbage can, 3' long plastic instrument sanitizing trough, and 14 bottles of homebrew.

Took a little power nap once I got to Mom and Dad's and hung out with Dad and my nephew and just relaxed. Mom got home in the late afternoon if I recall and then I followed them to the daycare to pick up my niece and then on to my sister and brother-in-law's place.

We drank homebrew, had snacks and then Tony Packo's (rhymes with smack oh, not taco) hot dogs for dinner. Tim and I made a beer run anticipating the good beer stores would be closed on Thanksgiving Day.

The weekend before Thanksgiving I made a batch of dough, punched it down a few times and then froze it. Thanksgiving Day morning I used it to make hard rolls for dinner. Tim's deep fried turkey was probably the best he's done yet. Every thing else also turned out perfect and was delicious as usual. I know I am biased but I think my family has the best Thanksgiving food!

Tim and Lisa had to work Friday morning and while they were gone the rest of us decorated the house, picked up a cake, and set out presents for Tim's month-early surprise birthday party. We got him everything he needed to start homebrewing!

That night some of their friends came over to give him a birthday present and then we proceeded to eat pizza and drink a lot of good beer and had a great time.

Saturday morning I guided Tim in brewing his first batch of homebrew. It was a Brewer's Best IPA kit and everything went smoothly. It should be ready to drink for Christmas. Afterwards he picked up an extra ounce of hops to dry hop next week when he racks it to the secondary fermenter.

After that we went out to lunch at a neat place in downtown Toledo. Then we went to the homebrew shop to get a few things Tim needs to connect the new Corny keg he got to dispense his homebrew and I got a few hundred bottle caps. After that we went to an army navy surplus store to see if I could find a new parka (I didn't) and then to Anderson's for a wreath for Lisa.

Saturday night we just chilled out and had a blast playing with the kids. Katelyn is at an especially fun age to play with. I also loaded into my car over 150 beer bottles that Tim has been saving for me! He didn't think we would be able to get them all in my car but we did. And they traveled very well. None of them shifted and there was no rattling which I expected a lot of. Now I have to scrub the labels off from over 150 beer bottles. I will be able start to brew more regularly with the extra bottle capacity so I will always have fresh beer waiting in my basement.

I got up early this morning so I could start driving back and try to miss the winter weather that was promised later in the day, and to try and beat everyone else coming back home from the holiday. It worked and I didn't encounter any traffic jams at all.

I unloaded the car as soon as I got home, but didn't do any unpacking, or decide where I am going to store my bottles while they wait to be cleaned and filled. I took a little nap and then showered, set up Mitch's cage and did some general neatening up downstairs. I am going to brush my teeth soon and try to get to bed early in case I need to get up early and shovel snow.

I finally got around to snapping a few pictures of my new car today while I was out doing errands.

It was the first time I put gas into it and I was so thrilled that it only took 8.5 gallons to top it off.






Lots of extra room in the garage now.


Here you can see the window wind deflectors I installed in action. I can be cruising down the road with my window open like that and no rain comes inside.

I got a coupon in the mail today to get a six pack of Pilsner Urquell for $2! My kind of coupon.

Lots of updates to write about over the last few weeks.

Probably the biggest is I had to buy a new (to me) car. The van was pretty sound overall, but I took it in to have a few things fixed and it turned out the repairs were going to be a couple thousands dollars. I have had it for almost nine years and it had 140,000 miles on it so I didn't feel bad about getting rid of it. I definitely got my money's worth out of it. In city diving I was getting around 20 MPG, sometimes less, so I was also very excited to have the excuse to bump up my fuel economy too.

My list of required must-haves was pretty short. I don't think I've seen a car that doesn't have air conditioning in the last decade so that was kind of an assumed requirement. Automatic transmission. It had to have cruise control and it had to be able to haul Mitch, his collapsed cage, a couple big suitcases and a few extra boxes, bags, etc. More than 99% of the time it will just be hauling me around and commuting to work so nothing flashy, reliability was important, and looking to minimize purchase price.

I didn't have a specific fuel economy rating in mind but I was expecting something at least in the high 20's. Obviously low miles and late model is good but also didn't have an exact cutoff in mind. Wanted a stereo system with an audio input jack on the front to plug in my MP3 player but that is something you can always add yourself for not too much time or money.

I loved the Scion xB. It is HUGE inside. However the xB's prior to 2006 or 2007 didn't have cruise control as an option, and the later model xB's had cruise control but they also put bigger engines in them which really dropped the fuel economy; almost to the mileage of the old van! So unfortunately the xB was out.

I test drove a Honda Fit and I was comfortable behind the wheel, but at the same time I felt like I was ducking my head and was being forced to lean to the right away from the side of the car even though I did have enough room. Just something subconsciously didn't work for me. With the back seats folded down it did have a good amount of cargo space, but I could do better.

Long story short I ended up going with a 2007 Toyota Matrix with only 3,400 miles. It is basically a new car. I love it! Very fun to drive especially compared to driving a van for almost the last decade. It feels very big inside for a small car. Tons of room for cargo when the seats are folded down, and the front passenger seat also folds flat so you can get some really long things in the car and still close the hatchback. It is rated at 29/34 MPG but I have not calculated how I am doing so far.

I already bought some wind deflectors for the windows from the WeatherTech factory showroom (no shipping costs!) and love those. I went with this brand because everyone on the internets had good things to say about them AND more importantly they installed without using adhesive tape like a lot of the other brands. I also bought their all weather floor mats for the front. They fit perfectly. I highly recommend their products.

The stock Toyota radio that came with it does not have a front input jack so I have been looking at my options for that but that is not urgent for me. I have also been looking at, and hearing really good things about, the ScanGauge. It plugs into the OBDII computer port of your car and lets you monitor pretty much everything the computer monitors in real time as well report error codes that make the dreaded "Check Engine Soon" idiot light come on. The primary feature I want it for is for keeping an eye on real time and average mileage since my car doesn't display that, but all the other stuff would be really fascinating too.

Enough car stuff. The other big change is my hair style. I have started shaving my head. My forehead has been slowly creeping back to meet my bald spot and I wanted to beat it to the punch. I have gotten mostly positive feedback and I feel pretty comfortable with it.

My Norelco electric razor I've had for probably six or seven years finally died and I replaced it with another Norelco. It performs even better than my first one! This one is designed to be rinsed out under hot water every day so you are always using fresh clean blades. I would buy it again in a second.

I have a three pound pot roast in the slow cooker with potatoes, onions and carrots for dinner tonight.

I have a batch of beer that I need to bottle today. That will bring me up to three batches (15 gallons) that is conditioning in my basement. I've met another homebrewer at work that kegs his beer and doesn't need bottles so he is saving his empties for me so I can get my bottle collection up to four batches worth. Tim-In-Law has also been working on increasing my bottle count. Four batches of bottles is about 200 bottles or eight cases!

I have almost a pound of Centennial, Cascade and Northern Brewer hops in the freezer for upcoming batches. My last two batches have been single hop batches so I can get a feel for what each type of hop contributes. My next batches will probably be an all Cascade an all Northern Brewer batch.

I'm in the process of getting quotes for a new roof on the house. I'm not looking forward to that expense.

I'm going to have to check this place out seeing as how it is just like a mini mall.

I have today off for the Columbus Day holiday which gave me the opportunity to take Mitch to the vet this morning for his annual check-up and shots. I scheduled to take him in Thursday morning to have his teeth cleaned because he is starting to get some gum irritation.

Last night a friend from work invited me over to eat a bunch of game birds he shot. There were just four of us, but he cooked about 15 quail, 15 pheasant, and a couple chuckers.

We started out with about a dozen skewers of pheasant breast on the grill with an Asian soy/sesame marinade and some pheasant legs with barbeque sauce as an appetizer.

Then he brought out the tray of roasted quail. Quail was a tie for my favorite this evening. After a bit he brought a tray with the roasted pheasant and chuckers. These had been dry rubbed with a spicy Cajun spice blend.

While I was still working on my chucker he brought out a large pheasant pot pie. This was the other favorite of the night. He made it in a regular 9" pie pan. Huge.

For dessert they baked a cherry pie. All of it was delicious.

They made three of the huge pot pies and sent one home with me along with a few quail.

I took Mitch along and he seemed to enjoy himself too. They were worried that their young and extremely energetic and non-stop motion German shorthaired pointer hunting dog would be too much for the calm laid back Mitch. They were just fine together.

Everything is in place. Kettle is on the fire coming up to temperature. Steeping grains are in the mesh bag. Yeast pack has been smacked. Liquid malt extract is in a hot water bath. I think I am going to open up another homebrew that I put in the fridge last night and sip that while I am waiting for my water to heat up.

Friday evening and three beers under my belt. Drawing the water I will brew with tomorrow so it can sit overnight and dechlorinate. Will get everything set out that I will need tomorrow so I can get brewing as soon as I have had my coffee and breakfast.

Tried one of my homebrews that I bottled last weekend. It is maltier than I expected but still good. Drinkable. I think another week of conditioning will carbonate it a bit more and bring out some more of the hop bitterness. I used two cans of amber malt extract. Tomorrow I have a can of amber and a can of light. I like the trial and error aspect of this hobby.

I am going to a friend's house Sunday to eat some pheasant he shot. He likes really weak beer, but I will still take a couple homebrews with me even though I don't think he will like them.

Talked to Tim-In-Law for a bit and am jealous of the load of great beer they they have for tonight. I am really interested in trying the Racer 5 IPA they tried and said is awesome.

OK, I have the stereo tuned to 104.3 FM and it is time to go get everything ready for tomorrow morning.

I wasn't quite sure how to keep track of which bottle of homebrew is which, and then I had a good idea: I will write the date I bottled each bottle on the bottle cap with a Sharpie. It is so simple I don't know why I didn't think of it before.

But that didn't take care of the problem of remembering the specifics of each batch (i.e. ingredients, unusual or different techniques that may have changed the outcome, etc.) We bought a little notepad for this, but you can run of space on a page, it can get dropped in a pale of ale, etc. So I had a second follow-up idea to the first idea above: I am going to use this entry to keep track of each batch of beer by bottle date.

I will just keep adding information to this entry rather than adding a new entry with every batch.

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Brew Log

Brad's Summer APA
Brewed 7/3/09
IBU's: 31

1 lb crystal malt steeped 30 minutes
6 lbs Light Dry Extract
0.60 oz Cascade [5.40 %] (60 min) Hops
0.70 oz Columbus [12.20 %] (60 min) Hops
1.00 oz Amarillo [8.20 %] (5 min)
Safale US-05


Hop Scare IPA (kit from Midwest Homebrewing Supply)
brewed 4/26/2009
1 lb caravienne malt, steeped 30 minutes at 155 degrees
6 lbs liquid gold malt
2 lbs dry light extract
1 oz Warrier hops, 15.4% alpha, 60 min
0.5 oz Amarillo hops, 8.2% alpha, 30 min
0.5 oz Amarillo hops, 8.2% alpha, 15 min
1 tsp Irish moss 15 minutes
2 oz Cascade hops, 5.4% alpha, 4 min
Wyeast American Ale II Activator pack


Bottled 1/2/2009
6 pounds light DME
1 pound crystal malt 60L
norther brewer hops
1 ounce 60 min
1 ounce 40 min
1 ounce 10 min?
1 ounce dry hopped
Safale US-05

Bottled 11/15/08
Brewed on 10/25/2008
1 pound US crystal malt 30 Lovibond steeped 20 minutes at 165 degrees
5.3 pounds DME
1 ounce centennial - 60 minutes
.5 ounce centennial - 40 minutes
.5 ounce centennial - 30 minutes
1 ounce centennial - 15 minutes
1 teaspoon Irish moss - 15 minutes
1 ounce centennial dry hopped into secondary fermentor when racking after first week
2 7 gram packets of Cooper's Ale Yeast pitched dry directly into wort without proofing
Used wort chiller for first time. Cooled down to 70 degrees in about 20 minutes

11/1/2008 – Estimated bottling date of batch brewed on 8/11/2008.
OG 1.050
2.5 ounces Simcoe hops, continuous addition. 0.5 ounces dry hopped in secondary fermenter.
3.3 pounds Briess CBW non-diastatic unhopped golden light LME
3.3 pounds Briess CBW non-diastatic unhopped sparkling amber LME
Steeping grains: 1 pound Briess 60L crystal malt 6 row
1 teaspoon Irish moss - 15 minutes
1 pound Briess victory malt
Wyeast Northwest Ale yeast.
Primed with cane sugar.

Bottled 10/4/2008 – Ad hoc recipe. ~5.5% ABV
6.6 pounds amber LME
0.5 pounds light DME
1 ounce Cascade bittering
0.5 ounce Kent Golding bittering
1.5 ounce Kent Golding flavor
1 pack Munton's dry yeast to the primary, and another pack to the secondary when fermentation stopped.

Aerated the wort this time. Poured hot wort into primary fermenter with a bag of commercial ice.

After one week of bottle conditioning my first impression is that this turned out almost like a hopped up stout. Using all amber extract is too much for my tastes. It is still good though.

Bottled 8/22/2008 – Mead, basic dry. 10.4% ABV 12 pounds mesquite honey, Pasteur Champagne Red Star yeast, acid blend (citric/tartaric/malic)

Bottled 8/10/2008 – First solo batch. Used a Brewer's Best American Micro Style Pale Ale. 1.5 ounces Cascade hops, bittering 1.5 ounces Willamete hops, flavor. Added the yeast before the wort was properly cooled. I think it was about 130 degrees. Added a second packet of yeast to the secondary fermenter when fermentation stopped a few days after racking.

Bottled 6/7/2008 – Batch brewed at Bev-Art

I am officially sick of McCain saying "my friends" in every other sentence.

On the positive side though it makes for a good drinking game.

I have been really interested in trying Anheuser-Bush's first ale (as far as I'm aware) called Budweiser American Ale. I finally saw it in the store yesterday and picked up a six pack right away.

It is easily the best beer AB has ever produced, but it is just an OK beer compared to all of the other great beer out there. The carton says it is dry hopped with Cascade hops but I can just barely detect their aroma, and I detect no hop flavor. The hop bitterness is nice without being too overwhelming for people used to insipid macro lagers.

It wasn't dry, but it also wasn't overly malty or heavy. It had a nice body and mouth feel.

Another nice touch is the bottles have pry off caps rather than twist offs which means I can reuse the bottles for my homebrew. I expected to have to throw them away. A nice surprise.

Finally, a six pack was $7.50. For just $0.50 to a $1.00 more you can buy a really outstanding beer. If it was priced more like their other beers in the $6 range I might be more tempted to pick some up every now and then when feeling the pains of a bad economy, but at that price I don't think it's a beer I will be seeking out.

So overall it is a decent and approachable beer, but nothing too interesting. My hope is it will give people that normally just drink Budweiser-type lagers their first experience of a nice hoppy ale and be a "gateway drug" to the better beers that are out there. I am also hoping it will be showing up on tap in bars and restaurants that normally just have Bud on tap. If that was the best choice and I was feeling like a beer I would order one. If they just had Bud, Miller, etc. I would probably just pass.

I went to the homebrew shop on Sunday to get ingredients to brew an IPA next weekend and I am pretty excited about what I got.

The centerpiece of the batch is three ounces of Simcoe hops plugs! Their alpha acid content is 13.2%.

I also stepped up from dry yeast and got a Smack-pack of Wyeast Laboratories Northwest Ale strain. This is a link to the details of the yeast strain.

For steeping grains I got a pound of 60 Lovibond crystal malt and a pound of victory malt. I tasted a few grains of the victory malt before he crushed it and it has a very pronounced toasty bread taste. Lovibond is a measure of grain's darkness. The higher it is the darker it will make the beer. Crystal malt has a nice sweetness to help offset my Simcoe hops.

Finally I got a 3.3 pound can of amber liquid malt extract (LME) and one can of light LME.

On Saturday I finally bottled the batch of beer that my family drove 4 hours to help me brew 6 weeks ago on August 23, 2008. It is tasting really good and it is going to be really difficult for me to wait until this weekend to try a bottle. Friday after work I will bring a bottle up from my beer cellar and put it in the fridge so it will be ready to inspire me while I am brewing Saturday morning.

As a treat to myself for a productive weekend of yard work and chores I went to Whole Foods Sunday evening to try a new beer.

I picked up a 22 ounce bottle of Dreadnaught Imperial IPA from Three Floyds Brewing Company for $12. It turns out my instincts were good because it is the 17th highest rated beer on Beer Advocate! I didn't end up drinking it because I wasn't 100% in a beer mood and didn't want to waste it. Maybe I will save it for Friday night to enjoy while watching the presidential debates.

I also picked up a six pack of Mad Hatter IPA from New Holland Brewing Company. This is what I ended up having Sunday evening and I loved it! Might be my new favorite. At $8.50 I consider it to be a bargain. I almost walked out with a different six pack but I noticed that they had twist offs and I can't use those to bottle my homebrew, so I picked up my second choice and really lucked out. I can't wait for Tim-In-Law to try it and see what he thinks. I think it will compare well with his favorite Arrogant Bastard.

I've decided it would be better to make one post here rather than countless tearful phone calls to friends and family.

I have been diagnosed with bruxism.

I have been in regular contact with health care professionals and they are doing their best to help me. It is not contagious.

My head is still swimming with what this means, how my life will change, and if people are going to think of me differently.

It would mean the world to me if you see me in the store, at work, etc. to just treat me normally. Tell me about what is going on in your life, how your job is going, what you did over the weekend.. Don't cross the street and pretend you didn't see me. I am still the same person I was yesterday, just with a new cross to bear.

Thank you in advance for your support.

When I first started my journey into homebrewing I thought the goal was to try and make something that tastes close to what your favorite craft brewery makes.

Now I realize your favorite craft brewery's goal is to try and make something that tastes close to what homebrew tastes like.

Quick update: had a follow-up dentist appointment tonight to have a preemptive filling in some deep places that could collect debris. Very minor. She didn't even give me a shot, just a topical anesthetic. She also ground down a couple of points on a couple teeth so my bite meshes better. I could feel the improvement right away. Finally I was also fitted for a Nightguard because she said it looks like a might be grinding my teeth from side to side when I sleep. She said they will call me in a couple of weeks when it is ready to come in for a final fitting.

On the way home I stopped at Office Depot just to see if there is anything I couldn't live without. I couldn't find anything, but on the way out I stopped at the clearance table and found hand held staplers for $2 each, so I bought two.


Then I stopped at the library and got two beer history books and the movie 300.

I sat on the patio and read some of one of the beer books and had a delicious homebrew.

My favorite beer was Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, very respectable beer with an "A-" rating on beeradvocate.com. I think my first solo batch of homebrew I made on the patio is noticeably better than that, even though I made the two yeast mistakes and had to pitch additional yeast halfway through the fermentation. I am very encouraged. I can't wait to taste a sample of my latest batch when I rack this weekend.

Even though I have an awesome dentist and totally trust her I still get nervous and worked up before going in. When it's over I feel exhausted from stressing all day prior to the appointment. Therefore I am already brushed, PJ'd and in bed and it is not even 9:30 PM

Friday afternoon around my lunch break I jokingly sent my brother-in-law (who lives over four hours away) a text message telling him I would be brewing beer Sunday morning and he should come and help me.

To make a long story short about eight hours later mom, dad, sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew rolled into my driveway!

We all went to Portillo's to get some dinner and then went back home. Everyone else went to bed but Tim and I stayed up until a little after 1 AM talking about beer and we sampled 16 of them between the two of us. We have a lot of fun buying a big variety of individual beers and then splitting each one and see what we like and don't like.

Even though I then took a shower and didn't get to bed until 2 AM we were awake and brewing on the patio at 8 AM. I had a good time because that's what I was looking forward to doing all week anyway, and Tim seemed to enjoy it, but I think everyone else just indulged our beer enthusiasm. Thanks guys!

It was humid and getting warmer by the hour so by the time the beer was in the basement starting its fermentation and we got things a little cleaned up I was all hot and sweaty. I took a shower and then we went to Two Brothers Brewing Company for lunch, a few celebratory beers and a brewery tour.

After that we stopped at Binny's and picked up a large bottle of Chimay Blue and an out of this world outstanding large bottle of Avery Maharaja.

By the time we got home the lack of sleep, early start, heat and beer got to us and the guys stayed home and took a little cat nap and the girls drove to our downtown and walked around a bit.

For dinner we got some nice Chinese takeout which hit the spot and then we drank the two bottles of beer from Binny's.

This morning, Sunday, we got up and went to breakfast and then stopped at a local international grocery store and picked up a few fun things. Then we went back home, they had to pack up and they hit the road around 12:30 PM.

Since then I have just been doing little chores: laundry, straightening up, putting away brewing gear, etc. It was a really fun weekend that seemed to go too fast. I think part of the fun was that it was so last minute and spontaneous.

Somewhat related: last week I chilled one of the beers from my first solo batch and it seemed very light in body. Almost no mouth feel, but the flavor was good. I didn't care because it was my first batch and didn't expect it to be perfect. Thursday I brought another beer upstairs and put it in the fridge. While waiting for the family to show up I thought I would drink the now two-week-conditioned beer so the family wouldn't have to make polite comments about it. To my surprise the extra week of conditioning turned it into a super star! It was so good I immediately put eight of them on ice so they would be ready when they showed up after their drive, and I brought 6 more up and put them in the fridge before going to bed. Yeah beer!

The batch Tim and I brewed Saturday morning seems to be doing fantastic. The wort tasted good, and the piney hops smell that is coming out of the bubbling air lock now is just amazing. My original gravity was 1.060.

After the boil was done I added 10 pounds of store-bought ice per Alton Brown and it brought the temperature of the wort down to 70 degrees almost instantly. Great tip.

For aeration I used a half gallon plastic pitcher and scooped up water from my dechlorination bucket and then dumped it back in from about 6 feet up and did that for a few minutes and then added that water to the wort to bring it up to 5 gallons. I did not actually aerate the wort for fear of it oxidizing. So far the yeast seem to be digging it.

My plan is to brew my next batch of beer this Sunday morning. I wanted to do it Saturday but it is going to be hot, humid, and probably rainy. I have all of the ingredients I will need. Here is the list:

1 pound Gambrinus honey malt – crushed

3.3 pounds Northwestern Amber Liquid Malt Extract (LME)
3.3 pounds Briess Sparkling Amber LME

1 ounce Centennial hops (9.6% alpha acid)
2 ounce Kent Goldings hops (5.0% alpha acid)

Muntons' yeast

I also have a few pounds of Briess Pilsen light dried malt extract (DME). I am going to add some to the batch to see if it will give me extra body, but I am not sure how much I will add yet. Probably between 8 and 16 ounces, but I have to do some research. I will also use DME rather than priming sugar when it is time to bottle.

I will use all of the Centennial hops and half an ounce of the Kent Goldings hops for 60 minutes of bittering, and the remaining 1.5 ounce of Kent Goldings hops during the last 5 minutes of the boil for flavor and aroma.

For those keeping track I got the Briess Sparkling Amber LME and Briess Pilsen light DME in Toledo. The rest I got at Two Brothers Brewing Company.

I am kind of following the proportions that my first kit had, but not necessarily the ingredients. The kit had two cans of light LME, whereas this batch is amber, so it will be a darker beer and possibly sweeter. I think I will have an extra half ounce of hops more than the kit, but that should be OK because of the extra sweetness, plus I like hops.

I am just using dried yeast ($1 or $2) and not liquid yeast ($8) because I am still not confident yet, and if I screw up I don't want to waste money on premium yeast. If this one turns out good the following batch will have liquid yeast.

I'm looking forward to it! I will try to get all of my chores out of the way on Saturday so I can dedicate Sunday to beer and brewing.

I think I am going to buy this phone just because opening the box is so cool!

We bottled our first solo batch of beer 6 days ago and I couldn't wait a full week before trying a bottle. It turned out really good! I think it is on par with the batch we did with supervision at the beer class. It has less carbonation than the supervised batch because of pitching the yeast improperly, but it still gave me a little beer burp. I can't wait to see how it tastes after another week or two. Here is the obligatory video I took of the first pour.

Needle Nose thought my tool box was as good a place as any to rest his amazingly heavy head.

This is how I start sanitizing my beer equipment on brewing, racking or bottling days. This was taken on a racking day.

I have already added an ounce of iodophor to the carboy and am now adding 5 gallons of water. This will sanitize (not sterilize) the inside of the carboy which is what the beer will be racked into from the primary fermenter.



After the carboy is filled up I siphon it into a plastic container we got just for sanitizing. Doing this will sanitize the inside of the hose, and then I drop the whole hose into the container to sanitize the outside of it. We also put all of the equipment that will come into contact with the beer into the container.

I checked the specific gravity of the mead and beer tonight and the alcohol content of the mead is about 9.9% and the beer only changed a little bit since the last time I checked and it is between 4.2% and 4.4%.

The beer hasn't changed much because the fermentation really slowed down after I checked it last and I didn't add more yeast until just a few days ago on Friday. It took a couple days for the yeast to really get going again. Because of the way the beer is bubbling now I think it should be ready for bottling by this weekend.

You have to sanitize everything that comes into contact with your beer. The easiest way is to mix up five gallons of iodine solution in the fermenter and throw all of your equipment in there. That works great for most of my stuff but there are a few things that stick up well above the top of the bucket. Also on nights like tonight when I just need my thief and hydrometer it is wasteful to mix up a full five gallons of solution, but the thief is one of the long things that stick out over the top of the bucket.

Well I had a brainstorm and came up with the perfect solution. I went to the hardware store and bought one of those plastic troughs you use to wet wallpaper rolls. It cost $3 and one gallon of iodophor solution is the perfect amount to adequately cover everything. Here is a picture of it in action.



The thief is in the trough being sanitized and it is what I use to pull a sample out of the carboys for testing.

On the counter next to the trough is a racking cane. I don't use it because I bought an autosiphon, but the cane came with the bottle filler so I keep it just in case.

The next thing on the counter is the autosiphon. This is a racking cane inside of a tube with an airtight seal between the two. You pull the racking cane out and then push it back in and it automatically starts your siphon going. You don't have to suck on the end of the tube to get it going and contaminate things. HIGHLY recommended.

The last item is a food grade high temperature plastic stirring paddles for stirring the wort in the brew kettle.

I took this picture a couple weeks ago after I racked the beer from the primary fermenter to the carboy. The stuff in the bottom are the dissolved hop pellets and yeast hulls. The tube is the autosiphon with the flexible tubing attached to it and is of course what I used for the transfer.

Here is a picture of our mead and ale fermenting. The mead is in the carboy on the left and ale is on the right.



Notice the clarity of the mead. Last Wednesday I went downstairs to check on it and it still looked like lemonade. Completely opaque. I went downstairs on Friday and it was totally clarified! What a surprise. They have both been fermenting for three weeks. The beer is probably a little over 4% alcohol and when we checked the mead a week ago it was 8%, but the as vigorously as it has been fermenting I'll bet it could be over 10% now. I plan to check both within the next few days.

I didn't think a movie from my digital camera would have enough light or resolution to show the massive amounts of tiny bubbles that continuously rise to the surface day and night, but you can actually see it pretty well. The sound in the background is the air conditioner running. The mead is actually pretty quiet. At the end you can see a bubble of gas escaping in the air lock at the top.

I racked my beer again yesterday and checked the specific gravity. It went down only another point in the last week, but it tastes really good. It will still be very drinkable, just not as high of an alcohol content as it is supposed too. Actually that might make it a good summer beer! It is still around 4% ABV. I plan on bottling it next weekend. I think I am going to put a little yeast nutrient and yeast energizer in the fermenter today to see if that might help things along a bit.

We also racked our mead and checked its SG. It is at about 8% alcohol now! We drank the 6 ounce sample we needed to check the SG and it was so good we pulled another glass to drink. If it tastes that good now I think it will be amazing in a few months. It has a beautiful light straw color. We used Champaign yeast because we wanted a dry wine rather than a sweet one, and the Champaign taste is coming through nicely. We were going to make half of this batch still and half sparkling, but we think we might make it all sparkling now. Still not 100% sure yet, but that's what makes it fun.

After we took care of our 10 gallons of deliciousness we took the Two Brother's Brewery tour. I've done it once before with my parents but Amy had not taken it. Afterwards we were sitting in the tap house and I was trying a Cane & Ebel and think I have fallen in love with Simcoe hops. They are a fairly new variety introduced in 2000. I haven't seen them at my local homebrew shop and I think right now they are available mostly to commercial brewers. If I can't find them for my next batch I think I will try Cascade hops because I have read people describe Simcoe hops as Cascade on steroids.

The brewery also has a homebrew shop and I picked up 3.3 pounds of amber liquid malt extract for my next batch of beer and Amy got a large can of sterilized peach puree for an upcoming batch of mead. I think for the other half of the malt in my next beer I will use a powdered malt extract, but I don't know if I want that to be an amber or a light. I still have to do some more research. I am thinking about buying a little bit more than I need for the batch and use the extra as priming sugar rather than corn sugar.

If you describe the homebrew process to somebody it sounds like a lot of work and complexity, and it is if you had to do it all at one time. But because brewing and racking and bottling all happen on different days separated each by several weeks it is really not that bad. I actually look forward to each process. Each process takes about two hours from start to finish. Brew day probably takes a little longer because you have to boil your wort for one hour, but that is more just relaxing than actually working.

I had to go into work today for a little bit to check on a database that had been updated yesterday, and Amy is in Kansas to see a patient for the day. I am going to start some laundry, put away some brewing gear from yesterday, and do some puttering yard work. Don't know if I will cut the grass, but I plan on at least spraying and/or digging some weeds, pick up dog poop, light pruning, and maybe organize the garage a little bit. My aquarium has not had a partial water change in WAY too long. I should do that today too. Oh yeah, a bike ride would also be a good idea. The weather here is perfect today.

Just got back from a 9.8 mile bike ride. Had a Smithwick's and a Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA (I'm feeling good!) I'm going to take a shower and then check the specific gravity of the beer we brewed last week. I did two things wrong with it. 1) I did not aerate the wort and 2) pitched the yeast while the wort was too warm. The first day the airlock was bubbling almost continuously. After that it was bubbling about every 3 minutes or 3.5 minutes which I think seems on the slow side. I think it stopped bubbling today. Checking the specific gravity will tell me how far along it is to being beer. I might be surprised and it is already beer. It could go either way. We'll see.

I got this clipping in the mail today from my Dad. I HAVE to try this place. Any restaurant that boasts multiple menu items with "1 pound of bacon" in the same ad has to be good, right?


click on image to enlarge

Last week I went for a 9.7 mile bike ride and tonight I rode for 11.7 miles. My legs could have gone more, but my butt was getting saddle-sore.

Today Mitch is a big boy and is 5 years old! In honor of his birthday I thought I would post a video of him I took a few weeks ago but never got around to posting.

I was trying to get him riled up to play by making growling sounds and thumping the bed. It works sometimes, but this time all he did was stick his tongue out of the side of his mouth. I was laughing so hard I couldn't keep the camera steady.



My beer was going gangbusters the first day, but today it slowed to a bubble every 30 to 40 seconds. I did some looking on some homebrew forums and it might be because I did not aerate the wort enough before I pitched the yeast. I also added the yeast when the wort was possible too warm. You are supposed to get the temperature down close to 70 degrees, but I added it when it was 105 degrees. I hope to rack it to a carboy Friday are Saturday. I think I read somewhere that doing that can sometimes give the yeast a little nudge to start working again. I will also measure the specific gravity again to see how far along it is. (i.e. how much of the sugars have been converted to alcohol)

We made our first batch of beer today and a batch of mead! The process was a lot of fun and I think I am going to like periodically spending an afternoon on the patio mixing up 5 gallons of beer.

The video below is just a couple minutes after we put the bag of specialty malt (crystal malt) into 2 gallons of water in the brew kettle. We kept it the water between 160 and 170 degrees for 20 minutes. I was surprised how quickly it colored the water and how dark it made the water.



This is a picture of the muslin bag of grain after it was done steeping with a hole cut in it to see what it looks like. We tried a few bites of it and tt was like really fibrous oatmeal. Click on the picture to see a larger image.



After we removed the malt bag we turned off the burner and added two cans of liquid malt extract and the bittering hops. The heat gets turned off so the clumps of the syrupy malt extract that fall to the bottom do not burn. Once we completely stirred it into the liquid we turned the heat back on, brought it to a boil, and kept it boiling for 55 minutes. After 55 minutes we add the finishing hops and boiled for an additional 5 minutes.

We had a clean 7.9 gallon fermenter with 2 gallons of water that sat out overnight so the chlorine could evaporate off. We poured the wort (that is what is in the kettle now) into the fermenter, and then added additional water to bring the total volume to 5 gallons. The original gravity is 1.045. That is a measure of how much sugar is in the water. As it gets consumed by the yeast and turned to alcohol the specific gravity will drop. Subtracting the final gravity from the original gravity and plugging it into a formula will tell you how much alcohol is in the beer.

Once the wort had cooled to 105 degrees I added the yeast and put the lid on and inserted the air lock. Below is a video just a couple hours after I sealed it up and carried it to the basement. I apparently have some really happy yeast at work in there!



After about a week I will use a siphon to transfer the beer from the primary fermenter to a large glass jug called a carboy. This will clarify the beer because I will keep the tip of the siphon just a little bit above the sediment that will have settled to the bottom. I might do this once or twice more before I finally bottle it in two or three weeks. I will get a little clearer each time I do that.

I have taken it upon myself to make it my life's work to get people to understand dew point rather than the more commonly used, but less useful to most, relative humidity. I have written before that all you need to know when listening to the weather report is that a dew point of 65 degrees or higher means high humidity and will be uncomfortable. The lower the dew point is, the dryer the air is. Today I am going to show you how useless it is for the average person to know what the relative humidity is.

The chart below charts out, from top to bottom, temperature, dew point and relative humidity. Relative humidity is a function of temperature, so notice that the temperature line (top) and relative humidity line (bottom) move in an almost perfect mirror pattern. But notice the dew point stays unchanged.


I grabbed this screen shot from the NOAA website a couple of years ago when we were going through a long hot and humid spell.

At night time (the lightly shaded area) the relative humidity shoots up to 89%, but during the day it drops to 43%. But it is not any less humid during the day, and it is just as uncomfortable as during the night. That is because relative humidity is not directly measuring how much actual moisture is in the air. It is telling you how much more moisture you can add to the air at a given temperature. Really useful to you, isn't it?

The dew point is a direct measure of how much moisture is in the air. It is not dependant on temperature and will not fluctuate when the temperature changes, only when the moisture content of the air changes.

I went to the local homebrew shop today to check things out. They have a couple beginners equipment kits, but I think there are some things in there that I don't think I would use, so I worked up a list of the things I would want and priced it out. I asked if he would give me a discount because I was buying everything all at once and he said sure. The prices below are pre-discount. I think he might have put down the wrong prices for the pail and lid because those seem a little expensive. We also forgot to add a stopper for the carboy and fermentation air locks, but those are just a couple dollars each. I didn't buy anything today because Amy wanted to be there when we buy everything, so I will wait until she is back from California visiting her mom.

Glass carboy - 6.5 gallons	29.50
fermenting pail – 6.5 gallons	15.90
pail lid	5.69
auto siphon	10.20
bottling siphon	9.90
hydrometer	6.20
bottle sterilizer	14.65
45-bottle drying tree	29.00
capper	16.95
Stainless steel brew kettle - 5 gallons	32.50
Total	170.49

They had a bunch of ingredient kits too I looked over. I think my first one will be an American pale ale. I plan on doing a couple kits first before I try an all-grain batch. He gave me a sample of a double Belgian ale they made in the store and it was delicious. It was not from a kit, but it was not an all grain batch. It was a recipe they made using powdered malts and malt extracts. That might be a good intermediate to do between the kits and an all grain batch. I could be a little creative and pick the varieties of hops I want to use, maybe use some specialty malts, etc.

I went to Gordon's Food Service today and got 5 pounds of cocoa powder. Every morning I put a scoop in the soy protein drink I invented and it is cheaper to buy it this way rather than the 1 pound cans in the grocery store.

I went to performance bike after than and bought a chain cleaner, some chain cleaner fluid, and some Teflon chain lubricant.

Then I went to the homebrew shop as detailed above, and then because I was in the neighborhood I went to Farm and Fleet for no reason other than to walk around. I ended up getting hound food for Mitch, a rat trap, a solar powered LED dragonfly for the garden, and a Diet Coke, jerky and sesame sticks for the car because up to that point (3 PM) I only had coffee, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a beer sample and was a little beyond hungry.

After an afternoon of thinking about beer I really want to go have one, but I think I am going to cut the grass first and maybe take Mitch to the dog park or a walk around the neighborhood. If I had a beer now I probably wouldn't get to grass cutting next.

I also might have to take another video of me pouring a beer for my smartass brother in law, albeit probably not a homebrew one.

Five weeks ago we started our first batch of beer. A week ago we went back to the shop and bottled it. They said it would be ready after conditioning in the bottles for two weeks. Well I couldn't wait and tried one tonight after just one week. I was amazed at how much carbonation there was. I kind of expected it to be half flat.



I shot a video of me pouring it so you could see how much carbonation there was. In the video I say it has fermented four months. I meant four weeks. And it was delicious. I think I am going to the local homebrew shop tomorrow and buying my brewing gear.

Yesterday afternoon we went back and bottled our beer. We had a taste of it directly from the fermenter, not chilled and not carbonated, and even like that it was fabulous! They drew off one bottle worth and charged just that bottle with their CO2 system and chilled it while we were bottling. When we tasted it that way it was even more amazing. Maybe one of the best beers I have had.

We started out by disinfecting our bottles. They had a little basin that held an iodine solution with a little push activated squirter in the center. You put the bottle on top of the squirter and push down three or four times. With each push it squirts the iodine solution into the bottle. They have a special rack that holds the bottles upside down so the excess solution and drain out. In the picture below you can see Amy using the disinfector. The red thing with all the bottles hanging off it is obviously the drip dry rack.



The picture below is 5 gallons of our beloved beer in a 6 or 6.5 gallon carboy. There is flexible plastic hose already inserted to use as a siphon for bottling. There is a stiff plastic tube attached to the hose with a little valve at the very bottom. You stick the tube all the way into the bottle. When the little valve hits the bottom of the bottle the beer starts flowing. Lift up the tube and the beer stops. Very clever! You fill it up right to the very top. When you pull the tube out of the bottle the level of beer falls and leaves the perfect amount of head space in the bottle. I think I like bottling that way better than opening and closing a spigot on a bottling bucket.



In the lower left corner of the picture you can see a little plastic bag with white stuff inside. That is priming sugar used. We took a couple cups of beer and microwaved it and then stirred the sugar in and then added it back to the carboy. Warming the beer just makes it easier to dissolve the sugar. This sugar will be totally consumed by the still-living yeast and converted to CO2 to carbonate the beer and will not add sweetness to it.

We took home 50 bottles. We would have had 52 but we drank one there and broke one while bottling. Right now they are sitting in my basement at about 69 degrees and should be ready to drink in about two weeks.

From what I've read online as the beer ages after the two week period the bubbles will get finer and finer and the flavors will improve and mesh even more. They recommended, especially for beginners. To have one beer a week and pay attention to how it changes over time.

The beer was so good, and it is kind of fun and cool to do, I think I am going to buy some gear and try making some myself.

I think I mentioned in a previous post that Amy got me a two-session beer making class. Well yesterday was class one. It was a blast and I think I want to eventually give it a try myself at home.

We started off meeting a couple of her friends, Jed and Cindy, for breakfast at 9 AM that live near the beer place. They were really nice and I enjoyed their company.

The class started at 11 AM and it was just a few blocks from where we had breakfast.



It was supposed to be us and another couple, but the other couple didn't show up so it was just us. I liked that because we got more personalized attention.

He poured us different types of beer to sample throughout the class. We also sampled three types of mead which I was excited to try. It was delicious! I always thought it was like sweet beer. It is actually just fermented honey. Surprisingly it tastes most similar to a white wine. He uses locally harvested honey which is neat. We could pick up on the florals, some pine, and various spicy notes. Whatever the bees foraged on really came out in the end result. Much more so than you can taste in just straight honey.

The instructor started soaking some barely malt and then cooking it around 6:30 in the morning. This is Amy stirring it after we dropped a satchel of crystal malt into it.



Here we have transferred the fresh malt from the kettle into the fermenter and are adding some canned malt. We added a can of hopped malt and a can of unhopped malt. He also added some hops to the mash in the kettle early in the morning.



These are the two cans of malt we added, the satchel of crystal malt, the vial of yeast, and the package of finishing hops we added to the fermenter right before we sealed it up.



The blue barrel is just city tap water that the instructor pulled the day before and let it sit so the chlorine could escape.



The orange tub on the table is where he first soaked the barley malt in the morning. The black thing on the table behind it is the kettle where he cooked the mash after it soaked for a while. He cooked it at 180 degrees.



We will go back in about three weeks to bottle the beer and take it home. At that time we can adjust the beer if it is too hoppy, not hoppy enough, adjust the specific gravity etc. He said a lot of home brewers don't adjust their beer before they bottle it and said you miss the opportunity to make a really good beer by skipping this step.

We will also add some corn sugar before we bottle it. This is how you carbonate the beer. It gives the yeast an easily digestible food source which results in lots of carbon dioxide. He said they use corn sugar rather than table sugar because the latter can give your beer an off taste.

I think I could see myself doing it at home. You don't need nearly as much expensive equipment as I thought:

A five gallon bucket to use as a fermenter with an airtight lid and a water valve on top to let the excess gases out and keep bacteria from getting in.

A kettle to cook the mash and a turkey fryer burner. I have the burner, but I would probably want to use a kettle that hasn't been used for anything else.

A hydrometer to check specific gravity.

A bottle capper.

Some siphon tubing.

That's it! I have a friend that does a little home brewing who said I could borrow his gear before I invest in my own.

It has been WAY too long since I have posted here. I have a lot to catch up on, so for now I think I will just do a summary to get back in the groove.

Probably the biggest thing is I was in Florida the last week of March for a much needed family vacation. Mom, Dad, Sister, bro-in-law, niece and nephew all shared a really nice condo right on the beach! It was a long, tough, and cold winter and a week in Florida really recharged my batteries. I have pictures and some videos I will post later.

For my birthday Amy got me a really neat gift: a two-session beer making class! Here are the details:

We'll cover all major aspects of brewing in this two-session class. In the first session you will brew a 6-gallon batch using the latest brewing techniques that truly produce a quality brew. Beer will ferment in our temperature-controlled cellar for 2 to 3 weeks. When ready, you choose a date to come in for the second session and bottle 50 to 60 bottles of your beer. We have many beer styles to choose from.

First Session:
•Factors that make quality beer
•In depth discussion on brewing ingredients
•Brewing techniques
•Hands-on brewing
•How to evaluate quality beer

Second Session:
•Bottling techniques
•Bottling your beer
(You can bring in your own bottles or purchase new ones for $10.95 per case (24 bottles)
•Capping your beer
•Beer storage
•Beer labeling. Label paper is $9.95 for 32 labels. You can customize a label design for a $45.00 set-up fee and 35 cents per label, or have one designed specially for you (quotes upon request)
•(Optional) Brew another batch.

You can choose any kind of beer you want to make. Because of this I have been researching and sampling different kinds of beer lately. Because of this I think I have decided my favorite kind of beer is pale ale.

Side note: beer can be divided into two types, lager and ale. The kind of yeast lager uses needs cooler temperatures and therefore longer brewing times and the yeast lives at the bottom of the brewing vessel. Ale yeast needs warmer temperature, shorter brew times, and lives at the top of the brewing vessel. I am probably overly generalizing, but lagers are milder and ales have a more complex taste. I am sure I will be writing more about this as I learn more.

I got another off-leash permit for Mitch this year for the county's dog parks. I have taken him there a few times after work. It really tires him out. I usually make him wear a muzzle, not because he is aggressive towards other dogs or people, but because if I don't, he won't play but will scavenge for poop and grass to eat. The part that sucks is that people think he is aggressive or a bad dog when they see the muzzle. Maybe I will get a vest for him that says something like "The muzzle is just to keep me from eating poop."

(It's surprising how much easier the words flow with some Goose Island Honker's Ale in me!)

I just bought an 80 megabyte Zune MP3 player this week and love it. I ordered it from Amazon Tuesday morning and opted for the free Super Saver shipping option. The initial estimate was that I would receive it on May 9 which is 19 days. I received it in two days on Thursday! I downloaded and installed the Zune software before it arrived and set up a bunch of podcasts I wanted to subscribe to. When it arrived I was syncing the music, podcasts, and updating the firmware within 4 minutes (literally) of opening it up. It has built-in WiFi and I was able to set that up with my encrypted connection without reading the instructions in just a couple minutes. I can synch the latest podcasts anywhere in the house without the need to plug a cable into player. Neat!

Went to the doctor again this morning to get another shot of cortisone in my elbow for tendonitis.

I need to cut the grass today.

I am doing the neighborhood newsletter for a couple months while the woman that normally does it is on maternity leave. I am actually writing this post in order to procrastinate from working on it.

I use spoons a lot in the kitchen. One to stir the coffee grounds after I pour the water into the French press. One for my cereal. When I am cooking I will grab a spoon for tasting. Etc. It seemed that I was always running out of teaspoons. Amy had a great idea from watching a chef on one of the Food Network shows. I went to Wal-Mart and bought 4 packs of cheap teaspoons ($1 per pack) for a total of 24 spoons and keep them in an upright container next to the stove. Now I can grab a clean spoon without worrying if I am running out! Genius.

This is the great hand-drawn Valentine's I got in the mail today from my 7 year old nephew.

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I snapped this right outside my front door tonight after work.

My left elbow has been very painful since September. I finally mentioned it to my doctor today. He said it is just tennis elbow and gave me a shot of cortisone and Novocain. He was happy with my numbers. My A1c hasn't changed since last visit: 6.2.

After my appointment I went out to breakfast and then to an international grocery store just for something to do. I got some Bobak's Chicago style hot dogs and hard rolls, sauerkraut directly from the barrel, brown rice, Indian hot mix snack, Philippine soy sauce, eggs, and English muffins. The chica cashier flirted with me a little bit. That was nice.

I am off work today for Lincoln's birthday. I need to shovel the driveway in a little bit. The snow is letting up and there is just between one and two inches. It is fluffy too so it shouldn't be too bad.

This is a picture of the Freedom Train my nephew drew for me a few weeks back that I like.


Watched most of the Grammy's on Sunday and finally found out the difference between album of the year, record of the year, and song of the year.

Album of the year is awarded to the artist for the entire album.

Record of the year is awarded to the ARTIST for a particular song.
Song of the year is awarded to the WRITER for a particular song.

I am giving Mitch about a half ounce of salmon oil per day primarily for his dry skin, but it will also be good for his general well being (coat, joints, heart, cancer, etc.) He has dropped a couple pounds recently, but rather than increase his food right now I will see how the 136 added calories from the salmon oil does. He is 70.2 pounds. He was around 72 pounds. I would like to keep him between 72 and 75.

When I first moved to Chicago the first Chicago pizza I had was Giordano's and I did not like it. The cheese was so chewy it was like trying to chew a mouthful of rubber bands. It just would not break down, and it didn't have very much taste.

Then I found Lou Malnati's. Very good. Because it was nearby, one of the originals, and always got good reviews I never felt the need to experiment with other places when I was in the mood for Chicago pizza. On Sunday however we tried Gino's East. Excellent! The next time I want some Chicago pizza it is going to be a decision between these two places now.

On Super Bowl Sunday I watched the game at a friend's house from work and did not get in until late. When I got home the house was dark and Mitch did not meet me at the door. I figured he was upstairs already asleep.

I walked into the kitchen and turned the light on. As soon as I did that I heard a crinkling from the family room and then something popped up from the couch. It then made its way off of the couch and towards my general direction. This is what I came home to that night:


I snapped a quick pic with my cell phone before I rescued him.

It is a cheese cracker bag he dug out of the kitchen trash can. I have no idea how long he had his head stuck inside, but I am just glad he didn't suffocate.

I got a point-and-shoot camera this week (Canon SD1000) to compliment my full size digital SLR (Canon EOS 30D). One of the fun features it has is a time lapse movie mode. For your viewing please I present a time lapse video of me clearing the snow from the driveway this evening. I set the camera up on a tripod in a front bedroom.

Here is a quick video I shot of Mitch sitting on command!

Goliath used to follow me from room to room as I puttered around the house doing chores. Mitch follows me around the room as I do chores. It can bother people that aren't used to it, especially in the kitchen, but I have kind of developed a Mitch-RADAR and can sense when he is standing directly behind me ready to trip a less suspecting person. I like his attentiveness though.

Greyhounds are not really designed to sit, especially when they are right off the track because they are so tight and muscle bound, but I have been slowly working with Mitch and he can now sit on command! He still looks awkward doing it, but he doesn't seem to mind. I try to do it when he is excited, when he is jumping up and down when I pick up his leash, so he gets in the habit of listening to me when he is distracted. This so if he gets away from me on a walk or maybe in a fight at the dog park he can avoid injury or death by overcoming his natural urges to run or fight.

I had two days of training in the Loop for Python scripting. This is a link to a description of the class. I think it is going to be useful for me at work.

I bought a wide screen 22 inch monitor for my computer this week and I love it. It is a Samsung SyncMaster 226BW. I got it at Fry's for $270 after rebate. I can see column Z and row 46 on a spreadsheet! As I write this on Word I have it zoomed to 200% and I am sitting back in my chair about 4 feet away and I can see all the words perfectly without squinting. I will have to get a wireless keyboard now to make it even more convenient.

I have been wanting this saddle for my bike for over a year now, and everywhere I looked it was about $70. A few weeks ago I was wandering around the local Performance Bicycle store and they had it on sale for $50. I thought what the heck. It's a good price and I know I will buy it eventually so I might as well just get it. When I checked out it rang up for only $35! Yeah me!