What a lovely shade of ouch you're wearing today

SeaFair came, beer was poured and I forgot that the sun wants to kill every living thing on the planet with its fierce stabbing sun rays. You could say that I'm a lovely shade of ouch, or was yesterday. Today it more of an uncomfortable shade of itchy. I'm somewhere between proud and surprised that for about 10 people (several of whom brought and drank nothing but bud light) we managed to finish the 5 gallon keg, and the 3 growlers of Naughty Scotty that came aboard as well. I'd say go us, but given the 14 hours I slept when I got back to shore I'm starting to think I'm getting old.

Hope everyone's weekend was more fun and less sunburned than mine.

The things the US government wastes time on

So if you are like the rest of the world, you are probably not surprised by the stock market taking a dump with all the three ring circus over the debt ceiling we've been having for the last several weeks. In that time Congress failed to keep the FAA open (way to go you stupid f*cks), introduced the Internet snooping Bill and even passed it in the house.

In short if you live in the US, I'm not in favor of either party right now and the lack of a 3rd (or 4th and 5th for that matter) party is letting this power consolidation go on unabated. I am proposing we choose to not re-elect a single US Representative or US Congressman. Not one, I think the message needs to not be one or the other side is right, but that you all are a bunch of dicks and need to work together or we will not re-elect you.

SeaFair!!

I am getting a little giddy, two more days until SeaFair! Beer, sun and Hydro racing; mostly the first two. Our benevolent host has seen fit to limit one of the more irritating people to one day on the boat, so Sunday (aka the day of debauchery) should be twice as much fun.

For some reason Saturday is "family day" and Sunday is when the party gets started. I predict (Johnny Carson style with the envelope to my head) that Monday is going to be rough. The Diamond Knot not so pale ale will debut next to my beer nerd friend's Naughty Scotty Scottish ale. Here's hoping 10 gallons of beer gets us through the weekend. If there was a way for me to just skip Friday and jump straight to the weekend I would. Don't mind me I'll be over here dreaming about beer and the weekend.

As always a big F*ck you to the great state of Texas, the person I'd most like to share a beer with might get one air mailed to her. I think it is illegal, so I still working on the details of this thought. This is America, I literary cannot believe there isn't a way to mail booze to your friends!

Work Conflict

It must have been something in the water, but yesterday was filled with conflict. Me and an accountant are going to find our selves in fisticuffs if she doesn't cool her heels, especially since it looks like the whole source of our conflict is really someone else's fault. I'm not shy about conflict, and I would dismiss it if that was the only conflict to be had yesterday. After she got me all riled up I went to a meeting (that I didn't want to attend) and my boss got a little lathered up talking to the CFO about a silly bit of training they wanted to get. While I agree that our users should learn how to use office on their own (literally they wanted training for how to use the ribbon interface) it is really unlike my boss to get so animated over something. Must have been a full moon or something, but man there was a lot of conflict (by my standards) yesterday.

Not so Pale Ale

So the Diamond Knot is finally done fermenting and was ready to be put into keg and bottles on Saturday. I'm getting really efficient at cleaning bottles and randomly figured out that my dishwasher makes an excellent and fee bottle drying rack that is conveniently located right next to the sink. (Seriously as a homework assignment I want you to go drink a case of beer or hard cider and try to see how many bottles you can fit into your dishwasher). While I the beer was fermenting I had the presence of mind to snap a picture, but didn't even think to get a picture of the bottling process. The picture you are about to see is the beer at its most violent point in the fermentation. The stuff you see suspended in the liquid is yeast doing its job.

As you can see it is a very vigorous fermentation. The only gripe I have so far is it is not a very "pale" pale ale. I missed the style by a fair margin I think, but since I'm not going to take this beer to competition it doesn't matter much. I let it ferment a little too long according to my chart with a final gravity of 1.011 and a healthy 6.3%ABV. Based on my thinking I needed to double plus some on my main grains and leave the color grains at the original values. It is a little bit of a forehead slapper moment to realize duh, double the grain that adds color in grain and the beer will be twice as dark. I think it will have to be called a copper ale, just because of the color. The good news is the wife thinks it smells good, and for someone that doesn't like beer she has a great nose for it. This is going to be one of the Kegs on Tap for Seafair this coming weekend. My beer nerd friend is making is Naughty Scottish ale, 10 gallons of beer ought to get us through at least Saturday. I'll do my best to get pictures of the beer as it is poured, but no promises 'cause I'm going to be drinking it as well.

Such a great weekend

The summer in the Pacific Northwest has mostly been known as the summer that wasn't. We've renamed the months as they come to better represent the weather that we have gotten. Junuary, and Julytober, (Augvember is on deck) but what little summer we have had keeps showing up on the weekends.

For this I am grateful.

This last Saturday was everything that makes people fall in love with the Pacific Northwest, it was about 68°F by 9AM, which was when we decided to meet another couple (also pregnant) to pick the "early" blues at a Blueberry farm up near our homes. In about an hour we had both managed a little less than 10lbs each and made our way to pay. The you pick berries are only $1.80/LB so it was less than $20 bucks for my 8.5lbs of berries and we got to spend time out in the sun before it got "intense". I air-quote intense because the day only got up to 83°F by the end of the day, but it was hot for us. After blueberry picking we followed the couple on an errand and then dropped the berries off at home to be cleaned later and went out to lunch.

Lunch was a quaint little Italian joint with outdoor seating and excellent food for being in the tiny ferry town. On a sunny day eating out on the patio was such a treat, and made it actually feel like summer. After lunch we walked the pier to an ice cream place and watched people fishing and crabbing for a while. In classic Northwest style one couple came out onto the pier for wedding pictures. In all it was a great afternoon. Now if you've ever been pregnant or know someone that was you would know that the pregnant ladies would be nappy after walking in the sun and eating so we went our separate ways for a nap and to clean our berries and other chores and they were coming back later for dinner.

While they were gone and my wife napped I managed to get my beer bottled and kegged (I had one batch that was fermenting in two vessels one for the keg the other for bottling). After that I got to play an hour of Modern Warfare 2 before it was time to cook dinner. Dinner was pork carnitas with fresh Pico de gallo. Just as we were finishing up dinner more friends started to arrive for S'mores. We rolled out to the back yard lit a fire, drank beer and roasted marshmallows while the sun went down.

It was a great day, I deeply with someone in Texas could have been here to experience it.

Thank you to all the new followers

I realize its a low number but Yeah for breaking 50 followers. I just wanted to remind a few of you if your profile isn't filled out I have no way of finding your blog. This would be a message to Magixx in particular, but a few others too. Thanks everybody.