Goodbye Old Friend

I just found out that my favorite author of my teenage years, Michael Crichton, died today of cancer.

I know it's cheesy to say, but I've never felt sad about a celebrity dying until now. Crichton had always been a bit of a role model for me. He was really tall. He went to Harvard Medical School (I really wanted to be a doctor). And the ideas and concepts that he penned were such an intricate stitching of current fact and future possibility, often mired in potential disaster. I spent a good many days in bed, pouring over his works old and new fascinated by the stories he created, but even moreso fascinated by the opening window of possibilities that he saw.

Crichton made the world an amazing place, where the incredible was just a little stretch further out, but warned us all that if we do not fully understand something, then we should be careful when trying to exploit it.

Goodbye old friend and hero. I hope one day we get to meet again for the first time.

Way to Stay Classy Fox

Headline image on Fox News the morning after the election:


Headline read in the order that your eyes naturally take you:
Obama, A World of Trouble, He Savors Victory.

Seriously Fox News, you couldn't hide your disdain any better than behind some blatant suggestiveness of your graphics? This is plain childish.

Yes We Will!

For the first time since I've been a voter I can finally say that the candidate that I voted for won, and won big.  I'm so happy, this is the first time in years that I can look at the letters USA and feel pride in who we are and what we can do as a country.

Tonight was one of the few nights where I felt like we really saw the best in people*.  McCain's speech was eloquent, kind and respectful.  It represented everything that I was sad this election lacked from him.  It was the first time he showed his heart, and in it you saw a good man and not an angry old person.  If only he had been that way the whole election instead of being a pawn of the Republican party, then this might have actually been a close race.

As for Obama's speech...wow.  I hope that we can become the country that he sees.  I'm blown away by statements showing real appreciation for his call from McCain, understanding that the US isn't alone in this world, pointing out how we can make our country better, and setting guiding principles for how we can take this country forward into the next 100 years. 

Now I am looking forward to seeing how the Obama administration is going to be pulled together, I think he will pull together some of the finest moderate minds that this country has ever seen and will actually respond rather than react to things going on in this world.  The only part that scares me though is the number of pardons and crap that the Bush administration is going to run through on the way out.  People that are criminals on both the governmental and business sides of the coin in all the crap that has happened this decade will simply skate away with Billions in blood money and a pardon in their pocket.

With this election finally our nation can move forward.  Finally we are no longer in the stagnation of a lame duck president & congress.  Finally we can take the steps that have been needed for so many years and begin moving forward to reassert ourselves not as a great power, but as a nation that is great.

God Bless the USA and I commend you on the decision you made tonight.



*Except the booing scumbags at John McCain's speech...what a bunch of loosers...must have been the Palin supporters.

Malting Gluten-free Grains - Part 2

From left to right:

1. Light-Roasted White Quinoa
   Malting Time: 2 days soak, 2 days malt*
   Roasting: 6 hours in dehydrator at 155 F
   Color: 3 SRM
   Smell: Sour, buttery, sweet (like kettle corn)
   Taste: Light, fresh, like horchata without cinnamon
   
   
2. Caramel Toasted White Quinoa
   Malting Time: 2 days soak, 2 days malt*
   Roasting: 1 hour in oven at 350 F
   Color: 15 SRM
   Smell: Sour, wort-like
   Taste: Light/Medium toasted, sour, no caramel notes
   
   
3. Light-Roasted Buckwheat
   Malting Time: 2 days soak, 2 days malt
   Roasting: 6 hours in dehydrator at 155 F
   Color: 1 SRM
   Smell: Earthy, nutty
   Taste: Nutty, dirt, smooth
   
   
4. Caramel Toasted Buckwheat
   Malting Time: 2 days soak, 2 days malt
   Roasting: 1.5 hours in oven at 350 F
   Color: 12 SRM
   Smell: Sweet (sweeter than Quinoa), nutty
   Taste: Roasted Nuts, lingering nuttiness,
   
   
5. Caramel Toasted Amaranth
   Malting Time: 2 days soak, 2 days malt
   Roasting: 1 hour in oven at 350 F
   Color: 10 SRM
   Smell: strong nuttiness, wort-like
   Taste: Smooth, light nuttiness,

Verdict:
Buckwheat doesn't really seem like that great of a grain for beer unless you're making something strong and want a nutty flavor.
Quinoa has a lot of cold break, but the flavors are somewhat resembling wort.
Amaranth is second only to millet in wort-likeness, should make a good base, but the grain is a bit expensive and rare, so likely will just be a fun addition for awhile. One problem that may arise is that since since the grain is so small the grains may slip right out of the grain bag.

*Quinoa soured slightly in the malt, likely explains a large chunk of the sour flavors. Recommend 1 day soak and then remove water and rinse 2x daily for 2-3 days.

SAT & Politics

God:Country::Capitalism:Socialism

Both can work well on their own, but mixing the two bastardizes both to where they can no longer perform the function they were made to do.

Japanese T-Shirt Folding

The internet is a cool place.  It helped me find this:
Japanese T-Shirt Folding

I was then able to take this:


And turn it into this:


Thanks internet!

What I Love About Austin

Last night I had to bring my work laptop home to do some work on a presentation. When I pulled up my wireless connection I was greeted for the first time by the names of all the networks set up by my neighbors and local businesses.

I sat down, smiled, screencapped and realized that I live in an awesome place for a number of reasons:

1. Notice there's not a single unsecured router names linksys.  This means I don't live amongst a bunch of morons.
2. MaxiPad - Most likely they use a signal booster for their router (hence the highest intensity of the local networks).  Some of those boosters look like, well....
3. One of them is somebody's name.  Most likely owned by an engineer describing the setup and the fact that they use 802.11n, which tells you about their max transfer rate.  This router is most likely covered by some ridiculously secure 1337 password.
4. TinFoilHat - Most likely somebody that is still campaigning for Ron Paul...they realize they're a conspiracy theorist and at least embrace their ideology instead of pretending to know more about the truth than you do.
5. makethescaryrepublicangoaway - No explanation needed.

I love where I live and am proud to have the condition known as Austism...where I think Austin is the best place in the whole state of Texas and would straight up refuse to live anywhere else.

Malting Gluten-free Grains

My wife (along with about 1/150 people) has Celiac, and as such, she can't have any gluten protein which you will find in such staples as Barley, Rye, (some) oats or Wheat (BRoW).  One little problem for her though is that she's a fan of good beers.  Since all normal beers have at least Barley or Wheat, then you can quickly see that beer is one of the many items that she can't have.

Well...almost.  Essentially there is only 1 beer that is even slightly affordable in our area that is GF (Redbridge), and it sucks at best.  There is one other brand (Green's), but they are about $5.50 for a bottle and can only be found at Whole Paycheck and Central Markup.  There's actually one good and affordable GF beer (New Grist), but you can't find it in our area.

The problem is that there hasn't been all that much work done on GF beers since they are much harder to make and the ingredients are more difficult to come by than normal beer ingredients.  Also add to it that a lot of the beers try only 1or 2 ingredients and don't quite seem to find a balance of taste and body.  Therefore, I have set out on a bit of a quest to take the time to malt and toast my own gluten-free grains and see what combination works best to create something that approximates what a beer should taste like.

Originally I created a beer for her that was a fantastic and flavorful version of a Belgian White (like Blue Moon).  The results were fantastic, far beyond what I expected.  Unfortunately though, I malted Quinoa, Millet & Soghum all together and wasn't really able to tell what flavors came from which grain.  So, for my next batch I decided to be a bit more deliberate about the whole process and hope to do more experiments in the future which will help the gluten-free-beer-brewing public (yes, I know this is a fairly small sub-set of the world...but that sub-set has few resources).

So as the first part of this story, I will share the results of malting Red Quinoa, White Quinoa, and Millet.  The results actually surprised me...

Below you will see the 4 glasses of liquid made by soaking malted and cracked grains in boiling hot water in my french press and then left to soak for about 20 minutes.  This method works really well because you can easily strain out the grains and see what the resultant wort (baby beer) looks like.


From left to right:

1. Unmalted Red Quinoa - Soaked in water for 2 hours, then toasted
   Roasting: 1.5 hours in oven at 350 F
   Color: 3-4 SRM
   Smell: Light, nutty
   Taste: Mild, nutty, watered-down
   
   
2. Malted* Red Quinoa
   Malting Time: 2 days
   Roasting: 1.25 hours in oven at 350 F
   Color: 15 SRM
   Smell: Medium to full-bodied nutty smell, smells like non-GF wort with nuttiness
   Taste: Slightly bitter, toasted-nutty, sour notes
   
   
3. Malted White Quinoa
   Malting Time: 2 days
   Roasting: 1.25 hours in oven at 350 F
   Color: 18-19 SRM
   Smell: Roasted coffee, hints of roasted pumpkin seeds
   Taste: Strong flavor, nice aftertaste...like coffee
   
   
4. Malted Millet
   Malting Time: 3 days
   Roasting: 1.25 hours in oven at 350 F
   Color: 10 SRM
   Smell: Sweet and nutty, caramel tones
   Taste: full-bodied, even tone, hints of lightly-burned popcorn (in a good way)

*Grains were malted by allowing them to soak in water for 3-4 days until sprouts were about 2x longer than the grain itself.  Grains were rinsed 2x daily so as to avoid bacteria growth.

Lessons Learned:

• Despite what some books say, you simply cannot soak & toast a gluten-free grain. If you want ANYTHING to come out of your grain, then you will absolutely have to malt it.
• I thought red quinoa would have more color and flavor than white quinoa.  Turns out, the exact opposite is true.  White quinoa was darker, had more body and more flavor than either batch of red quinoa.
• The line between delicious caramel malt and a charred malt is only about 15 minutes.  Next time I will pull the grains out earlier to try and get a more caramel-style malt.
• The white quinoa and millet taste much closer to a real wort than wort made with White Sorghum Extract by Briess.  Sorghum tends to have strong sour notes, hence Redbridge tasting so bad.
• I still have much to learn.

I ended up using the white quinoa and millet for my next batch of gluten-free beer.  They mashed really well (104-140-160 with 30 minute cycles) and the resultant wort was quite good.  Not only that, but when I discarded the grains they smelled delicious...almost like a cup of hot chocolate...or a bowl of coco krispies.  One thing to note is that there was a pretty high cold-break content compared to most normal beers that I've brewed. Overall I was pleasantly surprised by the initial product, but I will have to wait another month until I see if the resultant beer is any good. This batch will take a little longer since I'm going for a gluten-free trapist ale and it will have such a high alcohol content.

I think that's it for now.  I'm currently playing with some Amaranth, Buckwheat and White Quinoa.  Once I know more about the results, I'll post them here for reference.

The Latest Casualty in the War on Drugs: My Nose

This week I've pretty much been wiped out by some sort of cold, it started with a phlegmy congestion at the base of my nose and top of my throat. Then it started migrating up into my sinuses and is now thoroughly lodged in my nose. No retreat can be forced by using Mucinex, no respite comes from pain killers, and using Day Quill is not even productive...but why is Day/Night Quill not productive? That stuff used to totally wipe out whatever the heck it was put your world back right. The reason Day Quill now sucks turns out is because it no longer contains the essential ingredient Sudafed (Pseudoephedrine). Instead, some time a few years ago they switched ingredients to the lamest, most placebo drug I've ever taken for my sinuses Phenylephrine. So why on earth would you take a great drug that actually helps and castrate its potency by inserting some overpriced placebo? Turns out because of the ever so great War on Drugs. Or rather, because of the lobbyists that sucked up to the right people in Washington claiming that people feeling better was a drastic problem for our nation.

Or to Quote this article:

...Consider this amazing coincidence. The main company that stands to benefit from a law—passed in the name of the patriotic war on drugs—that effectively marginalizes in main competition and gives a boost to its inferior product spent millions in lobbying and campaign donations in the very year that the law was passed. There is no record of any substantial spending before the push for the law began, and spending has been declining since the law passed.

Once again, all Americans are made to suffer because of 2 groups of people: The idiots and those who enjoy being made afraid of everything. It pisses me off. Yes, I can still get the right medicine, it's not totally banned, but there's no reason I should be treated like some meth-addict when I just want to relieve my stuffy nose. There's no good reason why all the things that used to work were reformulated to suck. I just wish we could round up the idiots, make a new country called Absurdistan out of the Nevada desert and take all the panicy people in America and put them in the red states, that way they don't have to move and can keep enjoying their current policy of removing freedoms to increase security.

Remodeling

In case you didn't know we bought a house. Long story short, the only way we could afford where we wanted to live was to get a dump of a place and fix it up. So the following will be a little tribute to the work that's been done. And keep in mind for every half-finished piece that means there was TONS of work to be done as we found out every step of the way. It's like the previous owners were dead set on making repairing the place be as difficult as possible for the first person that wanted to come in and do it right.

Here are some of the major projects:
The Foundation:
Before - The previous owners decided it would be a great idea to have the washing machine and dryer in the kitchen. But when they made the piping, they obviously hired the cheapest labor possible. That resulted in the water lines being wrapped around the foundation. As all water lines do, they ended up leaking. Now instead of fixing the issue, they just covered the bad parts with a sheet of plywood and left everything to rot, and the house slowly sank into the rot.

After - Jacked up the house to take the load off of the beams. Cut out all the rot. Replaced sections with cedar 2x6s and then lowered the house back into place. Everything is well and quite sturdy now.


Turning the Kitchen Wall into a Bar:
Before - Kitchen was really separated from the rest of the house. We mapped out the place where we wanted to have open with blue tape. Once we had a good idea of the opening we put in a support wall to take some of the load off of the kitchen wall (the kitchen wall was a load-bearing wall).

During - Took our all the Sheetrock and paneling. Tried to do the Kool-Aid Man impersonation, but instead got whacked on the head with a big chunk of Sheetrock. Once everything was cleared out we began cutting out the load-bearing pieces.

After - After much muscling and sledgehammering we beat the support beam into place and then secured it to the sets of 2x4s on each end with pieces of metal. Then I built up a half wall and the Sheetrock guys came and made it look like a real bar.


The Bathroom:
Before - This was disgusting. The tub was filthy and rotted out, the fixtures were all dingy and the cheapest things money could buy, and there was a nice fat roach in the tub for us.


During - We tore out everything to the studs, replaced the areas of subfloor that had rotted out, put Hardy-backer over everything, replaced most of the pipes coming up from the floor, and found out that 2008-inches are evidently bigger than 1950-inches because the old 60" tub was about 1" shorter than the new 60" tub.

After - The Wife worked her tail off and did a great job with the tiling. We got a super-efficient toilet that actually flushes well, and the whole room looks clean and fresh...just like she wanted.


There's still lots to do, but it's great to see some of the things that we've done with the place and we can't wait to finish up a few of the projects we're currently working on.