Vegetable gardening in Anchorage is:

a bit of a challenge.

Cool spring temperatures have made the outside sad, and the and are struggling as well. The and are starting to creep up, though, and of course the is rocking and rolling, as are the and , which I need to go thin and transplant now.

Aloha

Packing up to leave our resort experience, we had a mini-fridge full o' stuff that we needed to do something with.

Of course, we chose the logical route, and coined the Kitchen Sink Tropical Drink:

1/8 bottle Maui golden rum
3/4 mini (shooter) bottle Johnny Love vodka
unknown amount watermelon juice from fresh Hawaii watermelon
juice of one squeezed lime
pineapple-orange-banana juice to taste

It's pretty wicked.

Flying out tonight, after one more day wandering around Oahu. More reports later!

Moose, on the ruuunn...



This moose was hanging out between our driveway and the street, and got spooked by something. You can see one of the new raised bed gardens in the lower left corner; happily the moose was content to eat the new green underbrush that is popping up everywhere.

Need to pack soon for a week in Oahu. Yeah, life is rough. We should have planned it better, though, to observe the rule that Alaskans should vacation during the winter, not the summer.

On a related note, the tourists are already wandering aimlessly around the tchotchke shops of downtown Anchorage, and walking out into traffic without looking, and Moose's Tooth is already whacked. A recent Wednesday evening at 5:30pm had an hour wait for four. We opted instead for Organic Oasis which had about four tables taken. Much more pleasant.

BREWING BOOT CAMP!

3B: Beyond Boston Barleywine
OG 1.103, FG 1.020, ABV 10.9% (a balance between american and english barleywine styles, like Rogue Old Crustacean: hoppy but also malty sweet)

Middle Child
projected OG 1.045, FG 1.004, ABV 5.4%
(the second and third runnings of 3B, the boil included a pint of my sister in law's habanero jelly. the resulting beer is actually quite tasty: think Wynkoop's Patty's Chile Beer, but not as spicy)

SDS: Schizo Disordered Stout
OG 1.076, FG 1.019, ABV 7.5%
(secondary was on four ounces of French oak chips soaked for nine days in Jim Beam)

Drop the Ball DIPA
OG 1.084, FG 1.009, ABV 9.8%
(let's just say the process was a little less than smooth. okay, we were drunk. a total of about 5.8 ounces of hops in the boil, and dry hopped with another ounce of Columbus)

AB: Alaskan Bastard
OG 1.080, FG 1.015, ABV 8.5%
(another installment in the bastard series, and the first one made in Alaska)

Go to the Dentist! Amber Ale
OG 1.060, SG 1.015, ABV 5.9%
(still in primary, as I want to pitch onto the yeast cake)

and about ten days after brewing boot camp:

May Day Proletariat Porter
OG 1.088, SG at secondary 1.017 (current ABV 9.2%)
pitched onto the SDS yeast cake

some documentary evidence that this madness actually occurred:

fortifications... Rule #1 is no joke!

getting ready to dough-in Go to the Dentist! Amber Ale

the end of a vigorous boil, with wort chiller

four days, six batches... and we even avoided acute alcohol poisoning!

the second chief deputy assistant brewer steps up to the plate for a little brewing baseball... diligent application of Rule #1 will do that to you.
EDIT, EDIT, EDIT. AHEM.

cleaning salvaged bottles from the NW regional judging of the NHC

kegerator, with three of the batches force carbonating

Another month, another post

Busy busy busy! Sacramento was good, got a lot of work and drinking done, but came down with a cold that was a bit of a damper. Looking forward to Hawaii: we fly out Saturday for a week.

We finally got the raised bed gardens planted: three with vegetables, one with mostly herbs. Picking up the topsoil in bulk was a little sketchy: a front loader dropped a little over a cubic yard into our trailer, which is rated for something like 1250 pounds. Thing is, a cubic yard of topsoil weighs about a ton, give or take for moisture content. Fortunately, it was a relatively short drive.

We shoveled all that topsoil in, then added about another 1.2 cubic yards of Organic 5: basically compost.

Here are some images post-planting:

broccoli, red cabbage, and green peppers

herb bed

tomatoes and basil

direct sown seeds: onions, red peppers, basil, spinach, and salad mix

some lemon balm, marigolds, and willamette hops in the background

Headed out

Turns out there is, indeed, free wifi throughout the Anchorage airport (at least the C concourse in the South Terminal; haven't tried B. And to hell with the North Terminal.) Slow as molasses, but there.

Flying to NYC tonight, on a miserable redeye to PDX, then to MSP, then to LGA. Ugh.

TGS was in town last weekend, and we brewed like a wildfire. An american amber, a barleywine, a DIPA, a foreign export stout, a bastard batch of randoms and leftovers, and a second runnings batch that will probably suck called Middle Child.

After the trip to NYC, I'm headed to SMF for a week in mid May, then J and I fly to Hawaii for a much needed vacation at the end of May. Should be good, though my back already hurts a little from all the flying.

Okay, back to podcast listening and trying to stay awake until my flight boards.

Kodiak redux

Nice day. Woke up in time (8:45) to have the bar area with the continental breakfast practically to myself. I lingered for a while reading A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini . It's deeply mediocre and overrated, but it's the book I brought, and it's not so terrible that I'm willing to put it down two-thirds in.

I spent a couple of hours working on my brief for the case that I'm here on while watching the Red Sox game, and then walked around (downtown) Kodiak. It was pleasant, a little chilly, and I went back to the hotel to call Kodiak Island Winery to see if they were open yet for the summer. I got the disappointing and sad news that they aren't sure if they're going to open at all this year due to health issues.

So I got a sandwich and headed out to Fort Abercrombie State Historical Park and had some nice walking, hiking, and touching the cold water in a very different part of the Pacific than the one we were in a month ago.

Catching AS back to ANC in a couple of hours, and then bearing down on this brief. More absolutely may or may not come soon.

Rarrr

I'm in Kodiak. Since I'm actually here for work, and Kodiak isn't that big of a place, I'm not going to say what kind of work. However, massive super duper bonus points (and a prize of an unspecified but undoubtedly beer flavored nature) to anyone who guesses what (specific) kind of work it is from this clue: the last time I was in Kodiak, I was doing the same type of work, for the same (ultimate) supervising attorney.

After a pleasant if bumpy at the end flight from ANC this morning really early, I had a decent breakfast and got some good work done. I then went back to my hotel, the Best Western, which is billed by Moon, Lonely Planet, and I think Frommer's as the nicest hotel in town. If so, well, hmmm. It's perfectly nice, but about the quality of a standard 2.5 star or low 3 star in any other (city.)

Great meeting for the work. Enough said.

Then I headed over to Kodiak Island Brewing Company, and had a nice chat with the super friendly brewer, Ben, who was kind enough to throw a couple tastes and a pint my way despite the fact that he was hoping to be closing soon. It was damn delicious: his Tripel IPA, run through a Randall. He seemed impressed that I know what Randall is, and I mentioned having had something from a Randall at, I *think* it was, GABF.

Okay -- I need to choose from a virtual non-plethora of options for dinner before everything closes on a Saturday night in the off-season. Maybe more later.

Busy busy busy

Somehow life gets much busier when you wake up one morning having no children, and then at 3:30pm, have a 17 year old foster daughter.

Insert the usual negligent blogger apologies to my vast readership -- I know, I know.

In other news, I did manage to get some beer kegged: the Four Directions (a DIPA with rye), and the Bog Monster , for which the recipe is here.

Okay, I'm going to the open house at King Career Center so I have to run. Busy busy busy.

Swords into plowshares

Sometimes people wonder what Plowshares is about, and don't really track when people start quotiung Isaiah 2:4 and Micah 4:3 (that's the bible, for those who were wondering. See also Joel 3:10, part of the Jewish Tanakh. No, I'm not religious.)

Here's an excellent, incisive, and delightfully tongue-in-cheek introduction to the concept of beating swords into plowshares, from The Pinky Show .

Currently I'm sitting at O'Hare, after a great five days in NYC. I'm watching the snow blowing horizontally, and wondering about my flight (complimentary upgrade to first class!) to Anchorage. The open bar at the Continental/Northwest lounge is helping immensely.

The Great Alaska Beer and Barleywine Festival

We attended this evening on the house, since we're volunteering tomorrow night.

The beer? Well, a few were amazing, a few fantastic, some excellent, many average/mediocre, and a depressing number hideous.

One barleywine smelled and tasted profoundly like dill pickles. Yes, really. The volunteer pouring the beer and the random "beer connoisseur" standing there all agreed. Big, big dill pickles.

It was most disappointing to see great breweries, who do great beer, and especially do great specialties, not bring out anything particularly interesting. I kept saying that I hoped they'd be brining it out for tomorrow's Connoisseur's Session. I sure hope so.

The first hour or two was really quite pleasant: after a small early rush right at opening, it really was mostly people who genuinely wanted to taste the beer, and not just get fucked up. Then, Team Meathead showed up in force. Packs and packs of the morons. Simultaneously, the bimbo fools in repulsively tight jeans showed up with high-heeled OPEN shoes, no socks, no tights, no nothing. Bare feet. It was about 19 degrees outside when we walked in.

Ahhhh. For free, it was great. For $30? Not likely.

Handy (or not) online candidate selectors

Since all those people in Iowa and New Hampshire seem to just have such a darn hard time selecting their candidates until the day of their caucus/primary, it's lucky that the internet has a number of tools you help you sort out the various forms of riff-raff you can vote for.

I took the Washington Post's Candidate Selector, Democratic Edition. It has a horribly clunky interface, and is immensely frustrating in that the pap answers provided by the campaigns often presented no real meaningful distinction between the candidates (hmmm...) Anyway, apparently I should vote for John Edwards:



I guess I'm a sucker for a multi-millionaire waving a neo-populist banner of a new-speak international proletariat, errr, middle class. Problem is, I don't vote for people, ever, who believe the state should murder its own citizens.

Well, actually, all these of those rotten fuckers believe that the government should murder its own citizens.

Never say I'm not an optimist, though: I went ahead and took another candidate selector, at selectsmart.com .



The interface was quite a bit nicer, but the results are extremely suspect. It got correct my likely vote: Dennis Kucinich, but I find it simply bizarre that it claims that Hillary Clinton agrees with me just six percent less than Kucinich. And I'm pretty much positive that I'd rather have Stephen Colbert over Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and Mike Huckabee, even though Colbert was left in the dust.

Reading in 2007

Though of you who know me personally know that I have just a touch of obsessive compulsive tendencies. (HEY! I HEARD THAT SNICKER!)

One of the ways that this manifests is that every book I finish, I write down in the back of my journal: date, title, author, number of pages, and place (primarily) read.

To paraphrase a certain NPR show, let's do the numbers:
total pages: 13,279

total books: 32
(I'll spare you opening the calculator: that's an average of 414.9 per book)

countries books were read in: four

longest book: 1382 pages, War and Remembrance. (Notably, it was the mass market paperback edition, while other editions are as few as 1042 pages. I enjoyed it, but no, it didn't make me run out and get Winds of War which War and Remembrance is written to follow.

shortest book: 98 pages, Peak Oil Survival: Preparation for life after gridcrash by Aric McBay.

A little more qualitatively:

Best books: probably Coming into the Country by John McPhee, and A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe. Though to be honest, it was kind of a slim year for good books, since many of my books came from a free lending library (read: books other people discarded.)

Best non-fiction book: The Big Eddy Club: The Stocking Stranglings and Southern Justice
by David Rose.

Worst book: hands down, with almost no real competition: The Informers by Bret Easton Ellis. In fact, it's certainly in the top five worst books I've ever finished, and could make a good solid run for the top spot in that list. (As my mom told me in the seventh grade, and I've repeated many times since to many people, I firmly believe that life is too short, and there are too many great books out there, to finish crappy books.) The Informers made the potential runners up for "Worst book" look like pinnacles of great literature, including such horrific, formulaic pap as Pacific Vortex! by Clive Cussler, Code of Honour by Harold Coyle, and Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Betrayal by by Eric Van Lustbader.

I mean, in any reasonable year, The Bourne Betrayal should absolutely be the worst book I'd finish. But didn't I tell you it was a tough year for me and good books?

Glacier Twelve Days of Barleywine, and me:

I did reasonably well; below is my end tally for the twelve days:

THE 1ST DAY OF BARLEYWINE – DEC. 10, 2007
1. 2001 Big Woody Barleywine aged in steel. (9.88% alcohol by volume)

THE 2nd DAY OF BARLEYWINE - DEC. 11, 2007
2. 2003 Big Woody Barleywine aged one year in American oak wine barrel. (10.75% alcohol by volume)

THE 4th DAY OF BARLEYWINE - DEC. 13, 2007
1. 2004 Big Woody Barleywine aged steel. (10.75% alcohol by volume)
2. 2004/2005 Wine barrel/Hungarian barrel Big Woody Barleywine blend. Aged one year on the respective oaks. (10.75% alcohol by volume)
3. Cask conditioned selection.

THE 5th DAY OF BARLEYWINE - DEC. 14, 2007
1. 2005 Big Woody Barleywine aged in virgin American oak barrels for one year. (10.75% alcohol by volume)
2. 2007 Razz XXX. (10.00% alcohol by volume)

THE 7th DAY OF BARLEYWINE - DEC. 16, 2007
1. 2006 Big Woody Barleywine aged one and a half years in American oak wine barrels from the Silverado Winery. (11.16% alcohol by volume)
2. 2006 Russian Imperial Stout aged two years in Ukrainian oak barrel. (9.20% alcohol by volume) Gold Medal winner and People’s Choice award at the 2006 Bistro Barrel Aged Beer Festival, Hayward, CA

THE 8th DAY OF BARLEYWINE - DEC. 17, 2007
1. 2006 Big Woody Barleywine - Double Barrel. Aged 19 months in Jim Beam barrels and then one year in American oak wine barrels from the Silverado Winery that were re-toasted to our brewer’s specifications (11.16% alcohol by volume)
2. 2006 Big Woody Barleywine - Triple Barrel. Aged five months in Jim Beam barrels, then five months in Ukrainian oak, and then seven months in additional Jim Beam Barrels. (11.16% alcohol by volume)
3. Cask conditioned selection.

THE 11th DAY OF BARLEYWINE - DEC. 20, 2007
1. 2008 Big Woody Barleywine aged in steel. (11.03% alcohol by volume)
2. 2008 Big Woody Barleywine aged ten months in American oak wine barrels from the Honig Winery. (11.03% alcohol by volume)
3. Cask conditioned selection.

THE 12th DAY OF BARLEYWINE – DEC. 21, 2007
1. 2008 Big Woody Barleywine aged in Jim Beam barrels for ten months. (11.03% alcohol by volume)
2. 2007 Russian Imperial Stout aged ten months in American oak wine barrels from the Silverado Winery. (9.20% alcohol by volume)

CASK BARLEYWINE
1. 2007 Big Woody Barleywine aged in steel for one year. (9.85% alcohol by volume)
2. 2006 Big Woody Barleywine - Double Barrel. Aged nineteen months in Jim Beam barrels and then one year in American oak wine barrels from the Silverado Winery that were re-toasted to our brewer’s specifications (11.16% alcohol by volume)
3. 2008 Big Woody Barleywine aged ten months in American oak wine barrels from the Honig Winery. (11.03% alcohol by volume)

CASK: all of the above, repeatedly. . .

It was a good run. I'm deeply pleased.

Glacier Twelve Days of Barleywine, and me:

I did reasonably well; below is my end tally for the twelve days:

THE 1ST DAY OF BARLEYWINE – DEC. 10, 2007
1. 2001 Big Woody Barleywine aged in steel. (9.88% alcohol by volume)

THE 2nd DAY OF BARLEYWINE - DEC. 11, 2007
2. 2003 Big Woody Barleywine aged one year in American oak wine barrel. (10.75% alcohol by volume)

THE 4th DAY OF BARLEYWINE - DEC. 13, 2007
1. 2004 Big Woody Barleywine aged steel. (10.75% alcohol by volume)
2. 2004/2005 Wine barrel/Hungarian barrel Big Woody Barleywine blend. Aged one year on the respective oaks. (10.75% alcohol by volume)
3. Cask conditioned selection.

THE 5th DAY OF BARLEYWINE - DEC. 14, 2007
1. 2005 Big Woody Barleywine aged in virgin American oak barrels for one year. (10.75% alcohol by volume)
2. 2007 Razz XXX. (10.00% alcohol by volume)

THE 7th DAY OF BARLEYWINE - DEC. 16, 2007
1. 2006 Big Woody Barleywine aged one and a half years in American oak wine barrels from the Silverado Winery. (11.16% alcohol by volume)
2. 2006 Russian Imperial Stout aged two years in Ukrainian oak barrel. (9.20% alcohol by volume) Gold Medal winner and People’s Choice award at the 2006 Bistro Barrel Aged Beer Festival, Hayward, CA

THE 8th DAY OF BARLEYWINE - DEC. 17, 2007
1. 2006 Big Woody Barleywine - Double Barrel. Aged 19 months in Jim Beam barrels and then one year in American oak wine barrels from the Silverado Winery that were re-toasted to our brewer’s specifications (11.16% alcohol by volume)
2. 2006 Big Woody Barleywine - Triple Barrel. Aged five months in Jim Beam barrels, then five months in Ukrainian oak, and then seven months in additional Jim Beam Barrels. (11.16% alcohol by volume)
3. Cask conditioned selection.

THE 11th DAY OF BARLEYWINE - DEC. 20, 2007
1. 2008 Big Woody Barleywine aged in steel. (11.03% alcohol by volume)
2. 2008 Big Woody Barleywine aged ten months in American oak wine barrels from the Honig Winery. (11.03% alcohol by volume)
3. Cask conditioned selection.

THE 12th DAY OF BARLEYWINE – DEC. 21, 2007
1. 2008 Big Woody Barleywine aged in Jim Beam barrels for ten months. (11.03% alcohol by volume)
2. 2007 Russian Imperial Stout aged ten months in American oak wine barrels from the Silverado Winery. (9.20% alcohol by volume)

CASK BARLEYWINE
1. 2007 Big Woody Barleywine aged in steel for one year. (9.85% alcohol by volume)
2. 2006 Big Woody Barleywine - Double Barrel. Aged nineteen months in Jim Beam barrels and then one year in American oak wine barrels from the Silverado Winery that were re-toasted to our brewer’s specifications (11.16% alcohol by volume)
3. 2008 Big Woody Barleywine aged ten months in American oak wine barrels from the Honig Winery. (11.03% alcohol by volume)

all of the above, repeatedly

It was a good run.

Outside my window

I actually have a whole series of images from this perspective, but today's is the only one I have handy. (In part, this is because the previously trustworthy of our computing life, the eMachines desktop, is starting to die. It's got the dreaded "running super extremely unbelievably slow" problem, and regularly has to be hard-shutdown, and restarted. I've backed up almost everything, and am about to resort to extreme measures.)

Anyway, here is what it looks like right now:



The ridge of snow up on the rail shows two amounts of snowfall in the last 48 hours. I shoveled in the evening on Monday, and then again midday yesterday. The taller amount of snow shows what we have received since Monday night, the slightly lower amount since Tuesday afternoon. Pretty scientific, huh?

Anchorage's bore tide

A good explanation can be found here. For those considering a visit, this would be less than a half hour drive from our home.

What's So Special About the Turnagain Arm Bore Tide?

Well, it’s huge—one of the biggest in the world, actually. Also, all other bore waves run up low-lying rivers in more southerly latitudes. The Turnagain Arm bore wave is the only one that occurs in the far north and the only one bordered by mountains, making it the most unique and most geologically dramatic bore tide in the world. It’s also amazingly accessible: you can see it by road along its entire 40- to 50-mile length. And it’s a wildlife-spotting opportunity: harbor seals often ride the tide into Turnagain Arm. Beluga whales may come in a half hour or so later once the water gets deeper.

Tattoos and Chinese characters

My friend Brian has this really extraordinary tattoo that wraps most of a lower leg: "non-violence" in fourteen different languages. This got me to thinking about Chinese characters, which led me to this really excellent website explaining and discussing Chinese characters and language.

No, mom, I'm not seriously considering getting a tattoo. But if I do, I'll send a picture to you right away.

On a happier note :

Bog Monster is actively fermenting. At least in the sweet wort, the peat flavor isn't nearly as profound as I thought it would be. The whole shebang ended up with a vastly higher OG (1096!) than I intended, as it boiled for almost an extra half hour while we screwed around with proofing the Safale US-05.

Today's This I Believe on NPR

This responds to the former interrogator who NPR's Weekend Edition's Liane Hansen calls "Alex Anderson." Speaking under a made-up name to protect herself, today's This I Believe commentator just about made me physically ill with the vile propaganda she spewed. If you were lucky enough to miss it, you can read the text at that link, and also listen to it for yourself.

Her self-justifying, hateful nonsense was deeply, profoundly offensive. While I basically found almost every line disgusting, I'll give a few of the highlights:

She claims that "I don't have any torture stories to share. I think many people would be surprised at the civilized lifestyle I experienced in Guantanamo. The detainees I worked with were murderers and rapists." I'll try to put aside that these three sentences are so inherently contradictory as to make almost no sense. Worse, they indicate that she is either willfully and wantonly ignorant, in the most bizarre, dishonest, and hypocritical tradition of the Bush administration, or simply an outright liar, if she has no "torture stories to share."

"Alex" says she served a year in Iraq as a military interrogator, then returned for a year as a civilian contractor, supposedly because she didn't feel like she'd done enough to make a difference:

"First I served as a soldier for a year, and then returned as a civilian contractor because I felt I hadn't done enough to make a difference the first time."

Hmmm... are you sure that you didn't just want to get paid a hell of a lot better to abuse people and engage in "torture lite"? See, e.g., former US Army interrogator Tony Lagouranis, in his outstanding and brutally honest book Fear Up Harsh, An Army Interrogator's Dark Journey Through Iraq. He writes about a civilian contract interrogator he calls "Eliza" who could quite easily be the despicable woman talking on This I Believe:

"Eliza was former military intelligence. She'd left the army and then came back to Iraq with a private firm, making somewhere between a hundred and two hundred thousand dollars per year to do the same thing we were doing. (Actually, these contractors did a lot less; they didn't have guard duty, latrine duty, or any other of the little bullshit jobs that the army uses to put you in your place.)"

She makes the preposterous suggestion that everyone she interrogated at Guantanamo were "murderers and rapists":

"The detainees I worked with were murderers and rapists."

But as bizarre and offensive as the commentary was on the whole, the really revolting part was while she talks about how "You never forgot for a moment that, given the chance, they'd kill you to get out" she nevertheless describes her interrogation, and her "clients" conditions, as basically a highly paid (for her) or all-expenses paid (for the prisoners) pleasure cruise:

"We'd meet, play dominoes, I'd bring chocolate and we'd talk a lot."

Yes, really: that's a copied and pasted quote. I couldn't make that up if I tried.

Her basic theme is the "redemption" she received through torturing, oops, interrogating people:

People say, "Hate the sin, not the sinner." That is easier said than done, but I learned that there is true freedom in accepting others unconditionally.

Uhhh, yeah: it's easy to accept someone unconditionally when they are imprisoned, and sitting across from you shackled while you interrogate them.

She tells one of her PRISONERS (I summarily reject her glibly describing her dominoes and chocolate party partners "clients") that her God expects her to "...love my neighbor as myself. That means you." Loving your neighbor as yourself means interrogating them while they are imprisoned and held incommunicado, without contact with their families, or legal representation, or basic civil and human rights, halfway across the world from their homes?

Nearing her conclusion, she writes that "My clients may never know this, but my year with them helped me to finally heal. My nightmares stopped." Well, "Alex Anderson", it sure is nice for you that playing dominos and eating chocolate with involuntary guests at your little Gitmo tea parties helped you heal. But how do you think this quality time felt for the prisoners?

I've listened to a lot of these "This I Believe" segments on NPR. They've been touching, poignant, banal, fascinating, and funny in turn. But this offensive, loathsome, hypocritical, dishonest propaganda makes me sick.

I'm quite sure that "Alex" doesn't care what I have to say (though she's certainly welcome to contact me through this blog, and I'd be happy to chat.) But while she might "believe we help to redeem each other through the power of acceptance" I should assure her that I won't be helping her with redemption by accepting her evil acts or her bizarre, dishonest story about them. She is going to need to look to her God that tells to her love her prisoners as herself for that redemption.

Some thoughts from my e-mail with E

(a.k.a. my favoritest and bestest sister)

First, a Utah Phillips qoute:

But if it's true the only real life I have is the life of my brain, what sense does it make to hand that brain to somebody for eight hours a day for their particular use on the presumption that at the end of the day they will give it back in an unmutilated condition?"

Next, a couple of the things I told her I need to go do: tunnel a hole in the door frame of the man door between our garage and the side driveway, so we can more easily plug in the engine block heater of the car. Welcome to Alaska.

Finally, tomorrow's homebrew:

Bog Monster

Roughly:

8# Crisp Maris Otter
1# organic white wheat
1# 10L crystal
1.75# peated malt

mash 149*F for 60 min, mash out 170*F, batch sparge

60 min: .25oz Columbus 13.7% pellet
40 min: .25oz Columbus 13.7% pellet
20 min: .25oz Columbus 13.7% pellet

Safale US-05 rehydrated

Should only take about a year in bottles to be drinkable. Yum!

Use a cloth bag!

Speaking of shitty carbon footprints...

Here are my 2007 flights, so far:

Alaska, and elsewhere

I know that some of you occasionally see vestiges of my e-mails to you show up in this blog. For better or worse, it's when writing generalities about ANC, and what I'm doing, that I realize I should probably blog it. So I guess you could be happy that what I was writing to you seemed interesting enough to me to share it with eveyrone, right? The next couple paragraphs are (somewhat edited) versions of an e-mail I just sent.

Life in Anchorage remains fine. It's in the low 20s, crisp and clear. The snowy mountains across the way look like they have movie lighting on them, with a low sun shining under a layer of haze. We're waiting for Alyeska to re-open, after last weeks unseasonably warm temps (mid to high 40s was standard) melted all the snow. In our front yard, the ice and snow that covered the gravel is all gone, and only remains over the "grass."

Outside my window, the birds are doing acrobatics. I guess I'm thinking they might do better by migrating south, but they do make for entertaining diversions when I see them out of the corner of my eye. I'm mostly working on asylum and political protest stuff, and home improvement and homebrewing.

Last week I flew to Georgia for the annual SOA Watch vigil. Just before that I was in Sacramento, and in the weeks before that Atlanta, DC, and Boston. On Saturday night I'm flying to Arizona. My carbon footprint is really sucking, but life is definitely not boring.

Homebrewing:
recently bottled and kegged: Belgian pumpkin ale; imperial porter
recently racked to secondary: rye DIPA
planning: Bog Monster (two pounds of peated malt in a ~14 pound grain bill!)

Okay, I need to finish catching up on e-mail, and then make sure my folding bicycle fits in its suitcase, and see if I can fashion a relatively solid set of towing wheels to tow the suitcase with the bike.

Travelin'

In the Alaska Board Room in Seattle now, at the tail end of a long trip (ANC-BOS-DCA-ATL-ANC.) Confidential to the guy in the blue fleece with "UCI" on the back of the collar, sitting at a work desk on the ground floor, screaming into your bluetooth headset: we don't need to hear it, and at least a few of us had a good laugh at your expense when it became clear that it's your mother you're screaming at.

Anchorage, for now

I just looked out the window at what I thought was a bird, then realized it was a leaf, falling from a tree, but fluttering at length. It really reminded me of the plastic bag dancing scene in American Beauty.

Back from a lovely wedding celebration in Maryland a couple of weekends ago, I'm off to Boston tomorrow. Then DC. Then Atlanta. Then back to Anchorage.

We got our first real snow night before last, and by real, I mean just an inch or two, but enough to stick to the ground. The mountains I look out the window at as I sit at the computer, in the Chugach range, are now pretty much covered with snow.

D.C., D.C., oh how you annoy me

I had an excellent time and J and C's wedding ceremony. It was truly beautiful, and had loads of great people, in a gorgeous setting. I was up until 1:45am looking at stars, and since I didn't want to interrupt people sleeping in the barn, just laid out in the passenger space of the ridiculous SUV I was given at Alamo. It was just about the comfiest sleeping I've ever done in a car, though.

Lots of good conversation and good people. I was the bartender for much of the night, and helped people imbibe with the extensive good booze to be had, including lots of outstanding merlot from Trader Joes, and a couple of organic wines. The potluck was excellent, too: lots of vegan goodies. It was designed as a way of contributing and sharing with our community, and it was wildly successful.

Had a great time this morning helping clean up, including moving straw bales on J's bike with the fantastic work trailer attached. At one point, we moved five bales with it, and it wasn't particularly difficult.

At DCA now, awaiting my first flight DCA-SEA, and then on to ANC with mom. See you in Seattle, mom!

At SeaTac, and why [some] Horizon ramp agents suck

After flying in last night and spending the night in a priceline hotel, I'm back at the airport to continue the journey to DC for the wedding of two friends. I ended up getting lucky with my flights: I was booked on AS 162, didn't get on standby on AS 96, got rolled over to AS 148, but then AS 96 went mechanical and they had to swap equipment, and AS 162 was delayed, so of the three ANC-SEA flights, I got lucky with Door #2.

The bus from SeaTac to downtown Seattle, #174, was damn near intolerable. Since the #194 "express" (a very relative term) doesn't run after about 9:15pm, I had to take #174, the milk run. In was a nasty slog, with about half the bus yammering loudly into their cell phones (many of them ramp/handlers for QX, i.e., Horizon Airlines) and then yammering excitedly to one another about what they'd just yammered about on their cell phones. One of the worst offenders moved to jam in next to me, in a sideways facing seat that is already somewhat cramped due to the metal poles, and remained there until he disembarked, despite there being at least half a dozen available seats immediately nearby.

Two of the QX ramp agents actively tried to cut in line getting on the bus (for no apparent reason, since the bus was not full, and there were only about a dozen of us unlucky enough to be standing there and waiting for it.) A moderate bit of stinkeye and asserting myself prevented both, at least from cutting me off, though they actively cut several other people.

Confidential to Horizon Airlines (and/or Menzies, if QX ramp work is also subcontracted to Menzies, as AS is): you might want to ask your employees to take off their company clothing before acting like complete asshats for 45 minutes in public.

In other news, I spent about 45 minutes at the Alaska MVP/First Class ticket counter with an extremely pleasant employee, while we sorted out my fouled up reservation. Because a multi-city itinerary (totally legal, and booked through alaskaair.com) included two ANC-SEA and SEA-ANC trips over a week, when I boarded the first of these legs the computer decided to 'use' both of my roundtrip sets of flight coupons. Like I said to the agent, if you can have one cookie, why not have two?

In the Board Room now, enjoying the free wifi, free Alaskan Amber, free chips, and awaiting the free veggie chili. Gotta fill up before the 5.5 hour SEA-DCA flight!

Travel

Lots of it coming up soon. Happily, a couple of complimentary MVP upgrades just cleared on Alaska. I had exit row seats, so I would have been reasonably comfortable leg-length-wise, but it's nice to also have the seat width and not have encroachment from my next-door-seatmates.

Speaking of chest thumping right wing Christian conservative no-bid defense contractors:

Specifically, of Blackwater USA, the mass murdering American defense contractor solely run by Erik Prince, a right wing Christian conservative wingnut with strong ties to the Bush administrationS:
"No doubt about it, if you shoot everyone around you, you reduce the risk that you will be shot."
-Daniel Schorr, NPR (10/01/2007)

Settling in

I've had a break from EMT training for most of the last week due to scheduling and logistical issues of the instructor. It's been nice, and has allowed me to get more done around the house. I've worked through most of the list that filled amost an entire side of an envelope, and am now on to mostly puttering-level tasks.

Today's to-do list includes dragging our asses all over robin hood's barn, from the commissary for onions and bananas and tofu, to the BX for bookshelves, to the hardware store for a showerhead, and bed bath and beyond for non-slip strips (or a mat) to put down in the main floor tub. I also need to track down 3-way CF and dimmable bulbs, which are looking both not too common, and very expensive.

Here are a few (bad) pictures of the three moose that were wandering around at the edge of our driveway last week. A couple of days after watching these three, I saw the largest moose I've ever seen, walk through the other part of our driveway and then wander into our back yard. Unfortunately, it was dark and I didn't get any photos.

Thoughts on media, and what we've unfortunately been watching lately

1) 24 is comically stupid: it's preposterous idiocy for the post 9/11 right-wing conspiracy-theory wingnut moron crowd. It's astonishing that people think this show is good, or interesting.

2) 300 is far beyond comically stupid: it's nonsensical high-sugar junk food for the pitifully limited brains of the xbox generation.

3) 300 is stupid, 24 is stupid. Therefore, all shows and movies with numbers as the sole title are stupid.

4) Disturbia is very, very stupid. It's Scream meets American Beauty for the moron crowd, and yet another installment in the 'how difficult it is to be rich' genre.

5) Fracture is appallingly bad and unrealistic. All of the characters are embarrassing parodies.

Food for thought, since it's certainly not going to be very tasty

I'm going to be a judge of the homebrew competition at the Alaska State Fair this weekend, and while looking through the website came across the winners, for 2006 and all-time, of the largest vegetable contest.

A few interesting things show up, like how many records were set last year. Examples: 67&1/8" long gourd, 84 pound collard green, 96.95 pound kohlrabi, and the one you most often hear about: the 1019 pound pumpkin.

Then there are the records for the ages, like 4.5 pound rhubarb (1983), 39.5 pound broccoli (1994), 45.25 pound red cabbage (1994), 71.75 pound chard (1995), and 25.3 pound mushroom (1993).

See what you too could do with 18 to 23 hours a day of sun, two 1,500 watt heaters, a Visqueen tent, a forklift, and up to 120 gallons of water a day? Get busy!

One reason we're excited about the new house

(And hope it closes as planned, with any more turmoil or headaches.) I was just writing this in an e-mail to a friend:

So definitely think about coming up when you have time: we're really excited to have people visit. In a sense, we've never really had enough space to properly have guests stay with us, at least who didn't mind sleeping on the couch in the living room.

It got me to thinking about the places J and I have lived, and how we really haven't had space for people to stay, at least when everyone didn't wan tto be in every else's back pockets:

Denver: one bed, one bath
San Diego, OB: studio, one bath
San Diego, University Heights: one bed, one bath
Salt Lake City, downtown: three bed, two bath (but only for four months)
Salt Lake City: two bed, one bath

It'll be awfully nice to be in a decently sized place, three bed, two and a half bath, especially with a view like this:

Don't ask me why in the fuck I'm reading this stuff:

at 1:30am in Anchorage. And don't ask about the last several hours I just spent reviewing individual assessor and property records for the Mat-Su Borough. (And TGS, say what we will about Mat-Su, but damn they've got a nice website for reviewing other people's property records: about the nicest I've ever used.)

Then, after hours of reasonably productive web surfing, I fall into the all too common practice of fucking around for an hour or two on the web, and before I know it, it's 1:30am, and for a series of links and click-throughs that I could relate to you, Gentle Reader, but won't, I end up reading a blog about being a consultant. At least it made me laugh out loud, especially this part:

The Art of the Shnap
Shnaps are a great way to escape the pain of a local [consulting] project for 30 minutes to an hour. To take a shnap, you tell the client, “I gotta go drop a deuce, be back in an hour.” You head into the John, slip down your drawers, drop some kids off at the pool, turn off the alarm on your cellphone, put your head in your lap (don’t forget to flush before this step so you’re not huffing your own shit fumes), and sleep.

(In the original version of this post, I actually included a link to the blog that this was in, but decided to remove it. As I read further down in the blog, there was some offensive, racist shit that I didn't like.)

Okay, now I'm really going to go brush my teeth with the electric toothbrush that, after about six years of faithful service and hundreds of falls, has finally developed a large crack. But hey, it's still working!

Price comparisons of vegan groceries in Anchorage

You know how you sometimes see those signs up at supermarkets claiming that in a direct product to product price comparison, their store came out x.x% lower than Competitors Y and Z?

While just about shitting myself over the preposterous prices at Carr's (which is essentially Safeway, same company) the other day, I decided to do just that. Except of course I did it with a distinctly hippie-ish natural foods vegan twist. For fuckssake, I'm sure not interested in comparing the price of Ragu's Ground Up Animal with Fresh Unknown Industrial Byproducts and A Half pound of Added Sugar Sauce.

I made a list of things that I regularly buy, and found myself with a shockingly logical route coming back from the dentist this morning. I then had the brain flash that should do beer price comparisons, too, but I'll report on those in another blog post.

THE ROUTE

• Carrs (Safeway) on West Dimond and Jewel Lake (hereinafter "Carrs")
  
• Fred Meyer on West Dimond just west of Minnesota ((hereinafter "Fred")
  
• Fred Meyer liquor store
  
• Gold Rush Liquors on Old Seward at East Dimond
  
• Brown Jug Warehouse store, 4140 Old Seward
  
• New Sagaya Midtown Market, Old Seward at 36th (hereinafter "Sagaya")
  
• VERY briefly spun around the astonishingly expensive Natural Pantry across the street from New Sagaya
  
• Carrs in the Sears Mall on Northern Lights, since I (mistakenly) assumed that the Carr's selection on West Dimond completely sucked due to their renovations
  
• Oaken Keg liquor store, a Carr's operation, in the Sears Mall
  
• the Commissary/PX/BX at Elmendorf AFB (hereinafter "base")
  

Now, if you're a stranger or lurker, you don't know why I have access to the Commissary at Elmendorf, and you'll have to e-mail me to find out. Suffice it to say that I'm EXTREMELY glad that I do have this access, because otherwise we might have to take out a home equity loan every time we wanted to buy Boca Burgers.

* The products and NON-SALE* prices are listed from from lowest to highest.
* I deliberately used the regular everyday price, ignoring temporary sales.
* Where a store isn't shown for a particular product, they either didn't sell it, or I just couldn't find it.

TOFU, cheapest available: Base $1.07; Sagaya $1.49; Carrs $2.19; Fred $2.39
Soy milk, 8th Continent

SOY MILK, 8th Continent (my favorite): Base $2.19; Fred Meyer $3.79; Sagaya $4.69

SOY MILK, Silk: Base $2.89; Fred Meyer $4.39; Carrs $4.69 (Silk Lite, no regular visible)

SMART BALANCE ORGANIC (vegan margarine): Base $2.59; Fred Meyer $3.29

SMART BALANCE [regular, non-vegan]: Base $1.79; Fred Meyer $2.45; Carrs 2.79

ONIONS, ORGANIC RED per pound: Base $1.11 (Earthbound Farms 3# bag); Sagaya $1.66 (IDENTICAL Earthbound Farms 3# bag)

ONIONS, conventional RED per pound: Base $1.15; Sagaya $1.49; Fred Meyer $1.99
(yes, I honestly couldn't find red onions anywhere at Carrs)

ONIONS, YELLOW per pound: Base $0.59; Fred Meyer $1.29; Sagaya $1.29; Carrs $1.39

LETTUCE, RED per head: Base $1.09; Fred Meyer $1.79; Sagaya $1.99; Carrs $1.99

LETTUCE, GREEN per head: Base $1.09; Fred Meyer $1.79; Sagaya $1.99; Carrs $1.99

SPINACH, per bunch: Base $1.29; Fred Meyer $1.79; Sagaya $1.99; Carrs $1.99

BROCCOLI, ORGANIC per pound: Base $1.58; Fred Meyer $2.29; Carrs $2.29; Sagaya $3.99

LIGHTLIFE vegan sausage tube: Base $2.34; Fred Meyer $3.99

COFFEE, ORGANIC per pound: Base: $4.38 ($2.74/10 oz.); Carrs $9.69; Fred Meyer $10.79

And my personal favorite for the most preposterous, indefensible markup in Anchorage:

BOCA VEGAN BURGERS: Base $2.00; Fred Meyer $4.19; Sagaya $5.49; Carrs $5.49

Note that despite vastly lower purchasing power/economy of scale, New Sagaya is almost always lower than Carrs / Safeway. Crazy.

The moral of the story? Always shop at the Base, then go to Fred Meyer as a more local backup, Sagaya is occasionally okay for certain items, and avoid Carrs / Safeway like avian influenza.

Of beers and vomit

So J is in Georgia, and while going to an excellent beer bar at my suggestion and urging, she happened on to an unknown brewpub. Their web site suggested decent beer and good vegetarian food options, so I urged her to go. Among other mixed reviews in a first e-mail, here is the entirety of the second e-mail she sent me:

when the ipa warms up it tastes like vomit

The identity of the brewpub will be withheld until I can do my own visit, but given that IPA is J's favorite style, the prospects look pretty dim.

It's been a long time since I laughed out loud at something on the web

Actually, probably since E (and by extension, S) got me to read Best of Craigslist. But, see, I have a relatively short attention span, and like pretty constant entertainment and/or stimuli of some kind. So with rare exceptions, like the Alaska Airlines board on Flytertalk and the homebrewing forum on BeerAdvocate, I rarely read many pages for long.

Anyway, back on topic, laughing out loud at things on the web.

Several things in this Instructable, and the pages linked from it, made me laugh out loud. Repeatedly.

Dinner!

Here's tonight's dinner, a green leaf lettuce salad with sauteed organic red onions and tofu, and toasted bread infused with garlic. The bread wasn't fresh per se, but was hot to the touch when I picked up it yesterday.

Cost breakdown:
$0.37: green leaf lettuce (1/3 of a $1.09 head, Alaska grown)
$1.07: tofu (one package)
$0.42: red onions (1/2 of one, $3.39 for 3 lbs/four onions, Earthbound Farms organic)
$0.20: Annie's Goddess dressing: (~ 1/30 of a $5.99, 1 liter bottle)
$0.25: bread (1/8 of a loaf, 2 for $4.00)

GRAND TOTAL: $2.30

Now, tell me where you can get vegan food like this at a restaurant at this cost?

TGS, watchoogot?

Cost comparisons of Anchorage groceries likely to follow.

Today's technology rant...

is more of a resigned sigh than a rant, I guess. My formerly reliable and trustworthy Dell 700m laptop has of late become a shitty little piece of shit laptop. First, the 71WH, 4800 mAH, Type C6017 extended life battery is dying. It basically only holds a little over an hour charge when fully charged with the DVD/CDROM drive running. For the last couple of years, it would regularly give me three plus hours with DVDs, a lifesaver on long flights. Researching it some, I've come to find out that almost everyone hates these batteries, which are close kin to the infamous firestarter Dell batteries which have resulted in at least three recalls in the last several years.

In addition, ont he ferry ride up here, the DVD/CDROM drive has started to malfunction, and doesn't like to correctly play DVDs for much more than an hour or two.

Mere coincidence that this all starts to go down after my 2 year extended warranty period ended in April? Truth be told, though, the extended warranty wasn't worth a shit anyway. When I had problems within a year, I spent endless and worthless hours on the phone with "technical support" who ran be through a series of stupid checklists, and ultimately I resolved the problem through some advice I found online.

Moral of the story? That Dell laptops suck, and I won't buy one again? Not really. I actually think it's a sad statement about built-in obsolescence, which manufacturers shamelessly apply to pretty much all consumer products these days. I still have a Mac Powerbook 5300c from 1996! that works fine, and offers better battery life than my Dell 700m from 2005. Okay, then, is the moral of the story that Macs are better than Dells for this purpose? Nope, not that, either: I know plenty of people with newer Max laptops that have jad just as shitty of lifespans.

No, I think the moral of the story is that computer (and consumer electronics) manufacturers have figured out that we, the purchasing public, have an endless capacity for ignorant spending and replacing and consumerism. In short: we're fools, and they know it. Pretty irritating, isn't it?

On a related note of irritation: sometime recently, Costco changed the only decent refund policy in the industry, and now only offers 60 or 90 days on electronics. I forget which, but it's not important, since it's a damn sight less than the lifetime satisfaction guarantee that they used to offer on everything they sold. That eliminates what was usually the primary reason, beyond decent (but usually not extraordinary) prices, to purchase from Costco. I used to almost always buy from them even when it wasn't precisely what I wanted. Now? Depends on where the price is right. And no, Costco, the "technical support" you offer as part of your Concierge services isn't a good substitute.

With apologies to John McPhee,

we've come in to the country. We arrived in Whittier, Alaska on the ferry on July 26th, and have been on the go since. On that first day, we:

• drove to Anchorage
  
• had breakfast at Snow City (details below)
  
• got both of our driver licenses
  
• got an expensive smog test for the car
  
• registered the car
  
• got library cards
  
• got J on the request list at the library for Harry Potter
  
• went to Elmendorf and got a base sticker for the car
  
• and got our health care switched over and PCM teams assigned
  
• and checked out the commissary
  
• 'checked in' to the B&B we're staying at for the month
  

It was a busy day.

We've now been in town a week, and J has been busy with meet and greets for her new job. In the meantime, we've gone to the home inspection for the house we're under contract for, and submitted a list of request repairs to the sellers. If all goes well, we close on the 27th.

I've been to the commissary twice, due to the VERY cheap prices, especially on the small but nice selection of organic produce, and excellent prices on fake-meat products.

Today we went out for a medical appointment for J, and checked out the "for sale" lot, and the (free to us!) recreation/fitness center. A free swimming pool! Yay!

Also over the weekend, we bought a Jeep Liberty. Ugh. It's an SUV, but getting in and out of our driveway in the winter will actually require legitimate 4WD. We are both sickened by the crappy gas mileage (18/23) but it's truly a winter vehicle only, and the bad mileage will help keep us honest honest on that.

I just called and got a dentist, and have an appointment for Monday morning. First thing Monday morning, like 6:45am, I drop off J at the airport to fly to Nome for the week, then go straight to the Jeep dealership to have the optional undercoating installed (sprayed on?) I then have a dentist appointment at 10am. Busy day ahead there, too.

And in the next hour, I need to go drop off some DVDs at the library, and then pick up the tickets we bought a month ago for tonight's sold-out Indigo Girls show at the Bear Tooth First Tap.

Sign with kayak tip at Gas Works Park


Seattle skyline from Lake Union


Seattle skyline #2 from Lake Union


Seattle skyline from Lake Union with kayak tip

Hazardous, do not launch, do not land, do not swim, do not fish, do not wade, do not breathe:

Gas Works Park in all its glory, from Lake Union:

More Gas Works Park with more tips of kayak on Lake Union:

Fremont Bridge open in the background of the George Washington/Aurora Bridge:

Images from Lake Union kayaking

Gas Works Park with the tip of the kayak in Lake Union:

My 200th post!

Eventful likely only for its number, if not its content.

The rumbling is that it's supposed to hit record high temperatures today in Seattle, at least the high 90s, possibly even 100. Naturally, I did what any reasonable person would do: I went outside, to do outdoor sports, in the sun, a little before noon.

I rented a kayak from the Moss Bay Rowing, Kayaking, and Sailing Center which is a ridiculously convenient 1.5 block walk from the hotel. I re-discovered, for the dozenth or twentieth time, that waves are a deceptive thing: you paddle as hard as you damn can against the waves, confident that on the return route, they'll be in your favor. Predictably, they were far more challenging on the way back. I paddled from the the south end of Lake Union to Gas Works Park, and back.

While hovering near the park and taking a drink and some pictures, I was able to rescue a child's plastic frisbee/hover/disc thingie (S would know what I'm talking about, since I'm pretty sure his son D has these) from the water. The child and mother were immensely grateful, though after I'd rescued it and was nearing the non-shore of Gas Works Park, the kid wanted to know "WHERE IS IT?!?" and I said "I've got it right here!" which relived him immensely. I don't know if he thought I was just toying with him, or what.

I then hustled to make it back within my rental period, to avoid paying for an extra hour, which would have been largely sitting around and drinking beer and eating snacks, since my shoulders are very much not in shape for kayaking. Of course, COnfidential to TGS, who doesn't love a little BAHHHH-LEEEE-WHIIIINE?!?

It was a fine time, overall. Tonight I head to West Seattle to see an Irish singersongwriter at B's neighborhood bar that he's really fond of. B and A came over last night for drinks, which was fun, and nice that it saved me the drive or bike ride to and fro West Seattle.

A few pictures of Lake Union on a hot, clear, beautiful day, in the next post.

Off to Anchorage...

for more househunting. In the meantime, here's a picture of the fridge in the hotel room where we are staying in Seattle. Not bad, eh? Visitors are invited!

Yet more Australia images!

A colorful salad: salad greens, spinach, yellow bell peppers, onions, and tomatoes:

A close-up of oven roasted tomatoes, also shown in another post:


The above-mentioned colorful salad; penne pasta with sauteed mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, and carmelized onions; and mashed potatoes with carmelized onions and fresh sage:


The silly bicycle setup I used to bring some food donations back to the ship. Note the cardboard box with the sling, which I wore like a messenger bag, and the box tied to the handlebars with rope:


ONIONS! being prepped for the above dishes, or dishes like them. I used lots of onions. I love onions.

More Australia images!

Sauteeing mushrooms:


Cantaloupe and grapefruit for fresh juice:


From top right, sauteed broccoli and cauliflower; rice; tomatoes; green beans; tofu (soon to be deep-fried); and garlic. Seems like I made a lot of stir-fry, doesn't it? Well, I did make a lot, but it also made for pretty pictures.


Oven-roasted tomatoes; and the broccoli from the above image:


A big bowl with apples, onions, and potatoes about to meet their respective fates:

Some Australia images

Mostly food, since, as my loyal readers know, is mostly what I did there...

Preparing guacamole for 26...


Guacamole for 26!


Stir fry for nine


Stir fry for nine, take two


My first cabin. The bunkbed is the wood at the far right of the image.

On the road again...

After that harrowing trip back to SLC, we finished packing up the house, and got most of the important renovation work finished. As for the remainder, well, too bad: if people want to buy a 100% turn-key move-in ready custom house, they won't be looking at our house anyway. We worked with N to get it listed, and are both listing it for sale and rental simultaneously. I'm of mixed minds on it: as great an investment as real estate is, and as much work as we put into that house, I'm sick as hell of it in a lot of ways.

We drove out of SLC on the 2nd, spent a night in Boise, ID, and then last night in Yakima, WA (where I'm writing from the hotel room while J sleeps.) Today we drive the last little bit to Seattle. Sure is nice the feds only require that you drive 350 miles per day.

Today will be interesting for food: judging from the signs in the windows, this little slice of small town central Washington is closed tight for the fourth of July holiday. I might have to suffer the overpriced breakfast buffet downstairs, since the in-room coffee I'm drinking tastes like diesel exhaust with a side of latex paint. Here, at the allegedly nicest hotel in Yakima (the Hilton Garden Inn) the last guest's coffee was still in the filter basket in the coffee maker. Classy!

I'm going to try to toss up a few Australia pictures here, so I'll sign this off now.