Brewing Done

My brewing season has come to a close. This past week I bottled my last two batches that were on deck, a mild and an American pale ale. I thought about it the other day, and I still consider myself a relatively crappy homebrewer. Still, let me briefly share a thing or two about what makes beer: grain, hops, and yeast.

Grain is the foundation of beer. It gives beer body and flavor; it makes it a food. It dictates whether a beer is nutty, roasty, smoky, chocolatey, bready, biscuity, or none of the above. It "dresses" beer as well, determining whether it appears pale mellow gold or an achromatic black.

Hops. Yes, it adds bitterness, but it also adds flavors/aromas that we might describe as earthy, floral, piney, spicy, or even citrusy. They are to brewing what salt is to cooking. While nothing short of necessary, "appropriate" usage varies wildly. Hops are happy to pilot the plane in an Imperial IPA or just sit coach in a dry stout.

Yeast is the wizard behind the curtain: seemingly magical, but alive and mortal. Like the rest of us, it sleeps, eats, shits, and dies. Grains and hops are what beer is made of, but it is the yeast that actually makes the beer. Really, brewers don't do much more than farm yeast and then pick up what is left behind.

It's true. I mean, when I think about it, I mostly just move liquids around and then eventually drink said liquids. And I'm completely fine with that.

Drinking: Belgian wibier, Brown ale, ESB, and whatever scraps are left
Bottle Conditioning: Mild, American pale ale
Fermenting: Nothing
Planning: Nothing...maybe a saison. Maybe.

m4/3

About two years ago, I briefly noted that Olympus had announced the Micro 4/3 (m4/3) standard. The rest of this post is yawn inducing so feel free to check out anytime, but like I said before, it's essentially Olympus DSLR quality with a smaller body. I bought into Olympus SLR 4/3's format despite its major shortcomings since the good parts fit my uses, the bad parts didn't matter too much, and I subjectively like Olympus, having used their venerable OM-4 long ago. I recently decided to buy into m4/3 as my "compact" camera for similar reasons.


A standard m4/3 setup is smaller than my most used 4/3 lens. Certain limitations mean it won't replace my brick yet, but m4/3 has a place with me. A natural feature of m4/3 and similar formats is a shorter flange-to-film distance, allowing the effective use of many legacy lenses. I've seen nice results using old OM, Voigtländer, and even CCTV lenses. I won't be screwing around with that for now though, I just look forward to traveling with the thing.

*the photo is a m4/3 E-P2 with 14-42mm 3.5-5.6 kit lens, compared to a 4/3 12-60mm 2.8-4 (which has some grime on it).

Black River State Forest

I went on a little solo backpacking trip in Black River State Forest in Wisconsin this past weekend. In short, it was filled with boring views, heat and humidity, leg buckling terrain, and ticks, ticks, ticks. It was a fucking tick bonanza. So what follows now is a half-hearted trip summary and some full-hearted tick advice:

The forest sits on the border of a long-ago glaciated area and, for geological explanations beyond the scope of my knowledge, the area therefore hosts some features peculiar for the Midwest, like bluffs and rocky crags in the middle of otherwise flat plains. Most of the trails are for ATV use but 20-30 miles are dedicated hiking trails where dispersed camping is allowed, which I always appreciate.


Despite all the interesting rock formations I saw driving into the forest, the hiking trail itself was boring. The trail was wide (likely due to it's dual use as a winter cross-country skiing trail) and well-worn but the difficulty of the terrain itself was a bit of a surprise.


My path (the white line is my decidedly easier return route). The trails had "difficulty" ratings associated with them, which was odd but I think it's mainly for the skiers. However, it translates into hiking difficulty and being the (masochistically) intrepid explorer I am, I chose the most difficult outgoing trails and was a bit caught off guard by the wild fluctuations in elevation. Straight up for 1/8 mile, straight down for 1/8 mile, rinse and repeat. Tiring.


A hot and humid ocean of green. Nice, but nothing special. So far my hike has offered little to look at, it has been terribly humid, my legs are burning, and I've had to lug around 10+ pounds of water (no natural water sources, just parking lot hand pumps).


This photo sucks, I know. Most of them suck this time. But the real story of this hike was my battle against a virtual battalion of ticks and mosquitoes. I hate ticks. That tiny little fire there, which is dangerously close to my tent, was the genesis of a smudge fire I was building in an attempt to maintain a small sphere of control. (Footnote: A smudge fire is basically a smoky no-flame anti-pest fire). Way too close to my tent...but I was going nuts, because I hate ticks.


My smudge worked and I was able to inspect myself and gear in relative peace, although enveloped in smoke. This photo is of a female American Dog Tick. If you see a tick, this will probably be the species (the male looks a bit different). I found her in this clever hiding spot around my pants' knee zips. Even for the season and area, the insects and ticks (ticks are arachnids) were inexplicably thick and aggressive. I shit you not, while lying in my tent I saw upwards of 50 ticks in the span of 30 minutes crawling on the outside mesh, attracted by my body heat and breath. Did I say I hate ticks?


Another female American Dog Tick, in an equally clever hiding spot: the gusset of my shoe. Now I'm no expert and these days I'm no more than an armchair backpacker, but this is not the first, nor will it be the last, time I've dealt with these sons of bitches. Because I hate ticks, I'm going to relate to you how I generally avoid them. Too much to read? Skip it. But should you ever take a walk in a tick-prone area...

1. Wear long pants, gusseted footwear, tight underwear, and stuff pants into socks
This is 90% of the battle and I say that with gusto. Yes you will look like a knickerbocker-wearing jackass, oh well. Works best with a properly cinched backpack hipbelt over your shirt and pants.

2. Avoid brushing up against vegetation, stick to the barest ground in the middle of the trail
Ticks do NOT climb trees and pounce onto you like cats. Why? Because they are not god damn cats. It is impossible for one to purposefully leap down from above, worry more about actual contact.

3. Check yourself constantly, even while moving
Check deliberately and carefully. They are smaller than a matchstick head, lay flatter than a credit card, and are as easy to miss as the grammatical error in this sentence.

4. DEET your hands and collar, 20-30% concentration
DEET is not a replacement for coverage, not even close, but it might be just enough to dissuade one from latching on.


Not much went my way that weekend but I still enjoyed myself for reasons not quite clear to me yet. I guess I need a rough one once in a while to appreciate the rest...

By the way, I was still reflexively glancing at and checking my arms and legs all day today. I hate ticks.

Bloody Mary

I generally don't drink cocktails but I have to say that the Bloody Mary is one fine drink and I've spent a good amount of time scouring the city for a great version of it. Having told this to someone, I was asked what my personal favorite was and realized that I had no answer.

During the next sunny afternoon, I decided to find my answer. I went to the store to procure critical research materials for my experimentation, such as booze and tomato juice. For whatever reason, I started "gourmet" and was using crap like roasted garlic, cilantro, beer, cumin, and balsamic vinegar. After lots of hard work and a couple of naps, I decided that there was nothing better than sticking to tradition:


- pour Worcestshire sauce to just cover the bottom of a small tumbler
- fill with 6-7 oz chilled low sodium tomato juice
- pinch of fresh finely ground black pepper
- large pinch of celery salt
- 1 to 3 dashes of Tabasco sauce
- 2 or 3 dashes of lime juice, preferably fresh
- 1.5 to 2 oz of chilled vodka
- stir slowly, stir well

It's a small but strong serving, there's no ice involved, and horseradish is optional. I think the best place to get creative is with the garnish, from celery, carrots, asparagus, pickles, peppers, cheese, salami, shrimp, to whatever.

This is important stuff people.

Poe on Read/Write Errors

My old law school laptop, which lacks a monitor and several keys, had long ago been relegated to television computer duty. There and in that capacity, it and its OEM parts have since served me faithfully and assiduously. One night, however, while riding the wild waves of the internet, I suddenly heard it. A low, dull, quick sound...much like the sound a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. It was the clicking of the old laptop's hard drive's heart, and with each reboot the click grew louder, louder, and louder still.

The old drive's hour had come. I unplugged the beast and, using no more than a screwdriver, hastily removed its drive and examined the corpse. Yes, it was stone. Stone dead. I placed my hand upon the drive and held it there many a minute. There was no click, for it was stone. Stone dead.

This hard drive would trouble me no more.


Read some Poe recently. Click of death. Busted Hitachi.

We seem to have bad luck with hard drives.

Case Dismissed. Certifiably Married.

Way back in September, we went to the Cook County Clerk's office to get our marriage license so we could get married. They took Cathy's info off her driver's license that indicates her name is "Cathy." So after our wedding, our marriage certificate ended up stating that I was married to "Cathy." However, her full given legal name is Catherine. So what's the big deal?

Well apparently it's a huge deal when it comes to changing your name post-marriage. When Cathy went to change her surname (a decision I left entirely up to her), the discrepancy between our marriage certificate and her vital records barred her from doing so. After a bunch of red taped dead ends, we learned we had to file a complaint against the Cook County Clerk to correct the certificate, i.e., we had to sue the Cook County Clerk (which we did). Thankfully, we didn't have to wait until our court date in July to prove that Cathy and Catherine are one and the same - it was agreed that we would voluntarily dismiss the action if they just made the change. So one lawsuit and four weeks later:

At first blush, this seems ridiculous. The procedure for correcting just a letter or the whole name on a marriage certificate is the same: you have to go through court and prove it. Why? Well I don't know the real reason but I do know that whose name is on a marriage certificate is powerful information in, say, the execution of a large estate, determining insurance coverage, property transfers, divorces, and a shit ton of other things. You make it too easy to change things like marriage licenses and you'll just get a lot of fraud.

Well either way, it was a pain so watch out for these things since sometimes the devil really is in the details.

Carbon Pawprint

A while ago, my good buddy Nick sent me an article about how the carbon footprint of owning a dog is equivalent to owning an SUV. I bet that's pretty accurate, depending on what you're feeding the guy. At the least it helps make an old photograph topical:

Also has a tendency to roll over.

Damaged Head Disk Assembly

Backup your hard drives folks. Cathy's iMac's hard drive gave up the ghost last week and we've been going nuts trying to recover the data on it (mainly her photos and music). Had a MacMaster try all sorts of software solutions and he even pulled the thing to see if it would mount on another Mac. None of that worked so we enlisted the services of a data recovery company to see what they could salvage. We'll see how that pans out.

I'm not sure why I didn't backup her data. I got screwed over a couple times so I always backup my important/irreplaceable content on two separate drives. I guess I had a lot of confidence in Macs but a hard drive is a hard drive no matter what computer it's in. Anyway, backup your shit since it could - correction, it will save you a ton of grief in the future.


Damaged head disk assembly. Corrupted firmware. Busted Seagate.

Mich Again

Cathy and I went to visit my parents one last time before our wedding. Among other things, I helped fix a couple screen doors, removed a mud dauber wasp nest, went on a six mile trail run, found a yellow jacket hive in a Foreman grill, and ate some ribs, clams, dumplings, sushi, and dim sum.


Apparently this is a "Florida Room." Kinda like an outdoor room I guess? The Dad patched up the roof so for the first time in years we could actually hang out in it, talk, relax, drink some brews, etc.


Speaking of brews, my Dad strongly supports Michigan microbreweries. These days its all he buys so there's always an interesting selection every time I visit. This weekend he had some nice pale ales from the Michigan Brewing Company.


The gloaming from the back deck.


Ate breakfast out on the deck on Saturday morning. It was a fruit-filled morning.


Obligatory plant photo from the backyard. No idea what this is.


You know, I originally thought this was a yellow jacket but it's actually a European paper wasp. Related but distinctly different.

Speaking of yellow jackets though, here's a little story:

Years ago I went on a solo backpacking trip through Shawnee National Forest. One morning I accidentally stepped on a large nest of yellow jackets and was swarmed within seconds. Thankfully it was early morning, I had not taken my tent down, and I was nearby. I ran straight to my tent with a literal cloud of yellow jackets following me. Even after getting in my tent, I had to deal with the 10 or so that had followed me in.

In the end, I counted about 40 distinct areas I was stung and I was stung multiple times in most of those spots. For the next couple hours, I had trouble moving my left arm and leg (most stings were localized there) and pain resonated throughout my body for the remainder of the day. Despite this, I still think I was extremely lucky in an unlucky situation.

This was also the same trip I got bit by a 6-foot snake but that is a story for another day.

Broiled Salmon

I like salmon. Tasty, healthy, easy to prepare. Minimal seasoning, into the oven for a couple minutes, and you're good to go.


Broiled salmon with a spicy black bean sauce, side of cilantro-lime basmati rice.

Some personal opinions:

As a general rule, avoid farmed salmon. Poorly managed salmon farms are inefficient and dump diseases and parasites into the wild. Be aware that the vast majority of anything labeled Atlantic salmon is also farmed. Instead, go for wild-caught Alaskan salmon since it's sustainable, healthier, cleaner, and tastier (frozen wild-caught will still probably taste better than fresh farmed). These days I also pass on west coast salmon not from Washington due to struggling salmon populations there.

Dirty Glass and Tuna

Well I got my broken glass I sent in for repair. The autofocus motor works but I found two big specks on the inside of the front lens element. Thankfully it's not a big deal due to the nature of these things: I once saw acceptable photos taken with a shattered lens that was literally glued back together.

Anyway, took some shots of dinner I made last night to test it out:


It's ridiculously raw, but that's the idea.


Seared ahi tuna with a sweet wasabi sauce. Uh I smashed the tuna a bit while cutting it so it looks a bit mangled - but whatever it was still tasty.

Try to eat seafood responsibly and safely. Check out Seafood Watch by the Monterey Bay Aquarium here. They publish lists of seafood that you should avoid due to overfishing or environmental impact reasons, as well as alternatives. They also identify fish to eat in moderation for health reasons (like fish with elevated levels of mercury).

Water

The Pacific Institute recently conducted a peer-reviewed study and found that bottled water is ~2000 times more energy intensive than tap water. (Link)


To me that's like buying a car that uses 2000 times more gas because it looks nicer. This is also because I'm not convinced that bottled water is objectively any "better" than most tap water in developed nations.

Broken Glass

Crap. While swapping out lenses over the past weekend, my favorite lens rolled, dropped two feet, and then bounced off the ground a couple times. I saw it happen and all I could do was feebly stretch out my arm while choking out a pathetic "Noooooo."

The focus motor is wrecked for sure, and since the focus ring is electronically coupled (something I never liked) I can't even focus it manually. I'm also guessing some lens elements were knocked out of alignment, but I can't really tell without the ability to focus it.

Anyway, I'm sending the thing in for repair. I'm hoping for the best but I'm not exactly confident it will come back to me as good as it was.


Not even a Vernors can cheer me up right now (photo by Cathy).

Museum of Science and Industry

Relatively long post today. Cathy and I had a day off earlier this week so we decided to go to the Museum of Science and Industry, which is apparently the largest science museum in the Western Hemisphere. I've never been there so I brought my camera along and took some touristy shots:


Obligatory shot of the Transportation Gallery. There was a train, a 727 (which you could go into), the Spirit of America, a Spitfire, and a bunch of other crap I don't remember. When I later went up into the 727 and sat in a coach class chair, I swear I began feeling the same minor anxiety (or is it annoyance?) I might experience during an actual flight. Good work guys.


There was an exhibit on various possible applications of technology in the future. Here is Cathy looking at a floating red blob from the future. I'm kidding, it's just dry ice and a projector (from the future).


An instrument in the future technology exhibit. Each block had different musical qualities which interacted in various ways depending on which side it rested on, it's location in relation to other blocks, and the multitude of groping hands pushing and prodding the blocks with no rhyme or reason.


Orville Wright on the Flyer. It's amazing to think that flight was not much more than fantasy 100 years ago, and yet now we've got planes that can send shit to outer space. Also, maybe it's just me but I would not be wearing a hat if I was planning on flying through the air.


Aerial view of Midwest farmland from the balcony level. This is actually just a very small part of a huge exhibit illustrating the railroad journey from Chicago to Seattle, complete with true-to-life scale models of buildings, people, and natural landmarks. One of the many fascinating details was a Chicago Red Line station that was "recreated brick for brick and is populated to reflect the individuals who were waiting for the train at 1:56 p.m. on April 3, 2002." Too bad this is the least exciting photo I took of the exhibit and I'm only posting it because two semis appear to be on a collision course.


The Berghoff in "Yesterday's Main Street" (at night I guess). I like the creepy mannequin staring out the window.


A psychedelic display of flowing bubbles and colors during an exhibit explaining the refining process of crude oil. To be honest, I was so busy staring at the bubbly visuals that I didn't hear a word of the narration.


A Foucault pendulum from two stories up. It's a visual demonstration showing that the Earth rotates. I remember seeing one of these in the Detroit Science Center as a kid and having the urge to just shove the thing as hard as I could.


Good times.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

You know what I've noticed? Chicago doesn't give a shit about recycling.

No real city-wide residential recycling program. Once upon a time, recycling at home consisted of placing recyclables into a blue bag and then putting said bag into your normal garbage bin. I don't even know that could be theoretically successful and needless to say, it was an utter failure from the beginning. A bin system has been recently introduced, but for some silly reason it's only in a handful of neighborhoods.


City recycling drop-off centers are scattered, hard to find, and poorly maintained. It's full because it never gets emptied, not because people are recycling a lot. Most people here just throw bottles, cans, and paper right into the trash without hesitation. I'm pulling this number soley from personal experience (i.e., my ass), but I'd say, conservatively, that 2/3 of a person's trash is either recyclable or even avoidable.

At least the park districts have recycling bins (so says the optimist in me). Still, it just seems that people around here are inescapably materialistic, yet only a minority care about conserving the resources for those materials.

Oh well.

Plundered

Cathy's mountain bike got stolen, straight out of our garage. Fuckin thieves. I blame it on bad garage security, a cheap cable lock, and my own idiocy (I had a perfectly decent krypto I could have slapped on but I got lazy). Looks like they just cut the cable and walked away with it. So the moral of the story is people suck so keep your shit locked up.


Lioness at Lincoln Park Zoo. Shoulda had her guarding the bike.

Micro 4/3 and a Honeybee

Olympus recently announced Micro 4/3. Probably no one cares about this except for me, but I think it's interesting photography news. It's basically a dSLR, but they take the SLR out of it. Same sensor, same resolution, interchangeable lenses, all on a much smaller camera body. It's not without it's obvious disadvantages but it would be a nice option to have.


Under uncontrolled conditions, getting a picture of an insect in flight is a pain. One millimeter either way and Mr. Honeybee here would've been thrown out of focus. Nabbed this one about a month ago in Michigan.

Lakefront Path

Went on a bike ride on the Lakefront Path here in Chicago. It's maintained immaculately, runs up and down Lake Michigan (obviously) with a number of places to stop and check out, and is easily accessible. But I gotta be honest, I'm not a big fan.

I've been on it quite a bit and have done all 18.5 miles of it many times. Yes, there are some nice sections to the north and south, but the middle 10 miles is infested with walkers, runners, bicyclists, skaters, and dog walkers. No big though, what do you expect in a big city? But it's the people themselves.

You've got bicyclists who treat the Path like their personal training grounds, rocketing along and around corners at 30 mph without warning. Groups of joggers ignore the drawn lanes designating directional traffic, line up across the already narrow path, and bitch at you when you try to squeeze through them. The oblivious cut across the path without signaling or looking. Others react unpredictably when you warn them of your presence, as if they're on a path that's not supposed to have people on it. And the fucked up thing is that it's not the tourists, it's the residents who don't seem to know any better. Congestion is expected, stupidity is not.

That said, it is in itself a beautiful and nicely maintained path. If you show up early enough or during the off season, it is a fantastic little ride to take.


Casual snap of racked bikes. Notice the ubiquitous pink Nalgene.


Enjoying the view during one of our breaks.


Ramps, ramps, ramps.

Field Museum of Natural History

Almost forgot about this. The same day that I went to the Shedd, I also popped into the Field. Honestly, I prefer the Shedd even though it is smaller and more crowded. I guess I just prefer looking at living things instead of dead things.

Photography at both places was somewhat difficult due to the low light level, the crowds, panes of glass in between me and the subject, the museum's rule against flashes (though not many people obeyed that one), and sometimes my lack of interest. Kept it casual and didn't spend much time on it, but even then it required a bit of patience, a steady hand, and a tolerant girlfriend.


Standard snap of the Stanley Great Hall. Probably a billion people have taken this exact picture. I really wasn't all that impressed, but oh well. Everyone around here knows about Sue, the Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton on display in front. However, not many people are too familiar with that poor old elephant a little further down, including me. I walked right by it.


The Asian exhibits were some of the first things we looked at. Here is a Buddhist bell. It was hard to resist hitting this thing.


And here is a large Chinese drum, it was almost four feet across, bad ass. It was made out of metal and had really interesting grooves and markings on it too. It was even harder to resist hitting this thing. (The depth of field of my lens appears to be almost non-existent here).


We made our way to the Jade Hall, which is where this figurine resided. This exhibit was small but interesting. Interesting to me because I like jade quite a bit.  Because it keeps the ghosts away. It's science.


This photo doesn't do it justice but there was a large intricately carved jade disc, measuring about two feet across.  Really nice.


Then we looked at a house that had carvings and etchings of wooden monsters on its inside and outside walls.


Fossilized bird. When I was in Hawaii, I asked my friend Chuck if he knew what an Archaeopteryx was. He said it was a form of back handspring.  Good times.


Here's Cathy in part of a large exhibit that walks you through a crash course of the history of the Earth's flora and fauna, detailing the numerous mass extinctions that have taken place.  Really interesting stuff.