Big Brew

Saturday was the American Homebrew Association's 'Big Brew' day. My local brewclub, RIFT (Rhode Island Fermentation Technicians) gathered at John C's house in Exeter for a monster brew.

John has gone over the top with his brew equipment; he normally makes fifteen gallon batches, for this event he broke in a new 55 gallon mash tun and we made 50 gallons of a British Dark Mild Ale.

The sheer scale of this brew was bordering on a commercial operation.  Over 70 pounds of grain went into the batch.  

On Facebook

So I've been on Facebook for a while now and have a few thoughts...

• This is a giant digital vacuum for your spare time.
  
• The 'friending' process kind of bugs me. I mean, with true friends, there are no worries. But then you get these friend requests from people that you used to work with that you aren't really friends with and what do you do? Do you let them in and let them see your most unprofessional photos and musings, or do you ignore their requests and risk future business relationships?
  
• I had to 'unfriend' a former business associate, because it turns out that she is some kind of religious wacko. I just couldn't deal with someone quoting scripture coming across my desk every week.
  
• I need better tools for creating a inner sanctum of friends that I can truly be rude with.
  
• I find myself filtering truly funny comments because I know that it will be viewed by a wider audience.
  

Death, Taxes, You know...

Procrastination is the fine art of using up all of your spare time, so that when you finally sit down to accomplish a task, you are in the proper state of panic.

I started doing the taxes and of course, I am taking time out to blog, which hasn't happened in four months. I'm only a fraction of the way through the process and am actively stalling, just to make it harder on myself.

Lots going on in the next four days, too. We may be holding a dinner party here tonight, which means cleaning the house. I've got a meeting the night of the 15th, which means there is a hard stop to the work earlier than in past years.

My favorite year involved having a printer die on the evening of the 15th, having to drive to work and loading software on a machine there, getting everything printed out and finished at 11:43pm and then flying at 90 mph down route 93 to South Station in Boston where postal carriers were collecting envelopes on the street. I got there on the dot of midnight.

I got plenty of time...maybe I'll tune in the Masters.