... why I/we aren't posting thrilling recountings of our beer tourism and homebrewing adventures anymore. So I shall somewhat enlighten you. The short version: we've given up drinking, at least for the "time being." Slightly more TL;DR version: We f… more »

The short version is, we've just been enjoying the summer, riding our motorcycle a ton (4,000 miles on it since we bought it on 7/4). Oh - right - yeah - we bought a new motorcycle. ;) We were plenty happy with our old bike - a '98 H-D Fat Boy, but… more »

The short version is "house buying is a pain in the ass, so we're staying." The long version is a little more complicated. We own our current house, er, that is, we pretend to own it in a little 30 year game we play with the bank. In a totally reco… more »

So we're trying to buy a new house. We're looking for a place with some land, ideally an acre or more, but definitely over 1/2 an acre - and on the outskirts of town, if not downright "out in the country." This should be easy, given we have excelle… more »

Just a quickie "we're not dead!" post again. There's just not much going on that's long-form blog post worthy lately. Our main project, if you could call it that, is sort of "downsizing" or "simplifying" our lives. Nothing so dramatic as Cage Free F… more »

This morning, during my shower, while I was getting dressed, and riding in the car on the way to the office, I rough-drafted a post in my head. It was going to talk at length about how the rise of mega-chains has killed diversity and local flavor in pr… more »

Yesterday was "learn to brew" day, and as planned we brewed our first all-grain batch during this event.  Everything went exactly as planned and all gravity and yield targets were met or slightly exceeded and the beer is happily fermenting at home in ou… more »

So we haven't brewed much lately.  Our Secret Project IBA is in secondary and will be kegged soon, and thus revealed to the unsuspecting world.  Er, at least homebrew enthusiasts in our area, anyway.  We'll be brewing our first all-grain batch, an ESB,… more »

And so with this post, I risk alienating or even offending 50% or more of my readers. A month or more ago, I made a post about the original purpose of this domain, and mentioned I may be recovering the magazine's issues from archive.org.  Well - I can'… more »

One thing we've always noticed about our local food business community is that, at least to us - admittedly outsiders, not employed in the business - it seems that the businesses are very friendly and supportive of each other.  There does not seem to be… more »

The earliest email I can find referencing it is from November 2010 - so it seems its been about 8 months that we've been involved with the "Chicken Cabal," and now our first batch of chickens is done. We did a "trial run" of 20 birds on Tuesday the 7th… more »

As I begin penning (so to speak) this entry, it's around 8 o'clock on a rainy Monday morning, the memories still ultra-fresh of this trip that I simply must chronicle. It would be all too easy to chalk this up to "you had to be there" or "you wouldn't… more »

Our weekend was extremely varied and exciting! Did a lot of new stuff, and something we hadn't done in ages. So we knew this band-with-a-cool-name, We Are Hex, was playing at The Black Sparrow (best bar in all of Lafayette, perhaps the world) on Frida… more »

Today Lizz and I went to Wabash Mountain Farm to help(and learn how to) process 2 guinea fowl roosters. Please note that by "process," I do mean kill, scald, pluck, eviscerate, and cool said birds, so that we can eat them. Given that, some of the ph… more »

We started our second batch of beer on Saturday. It is a Northern English Brown Ale (BJCP style 11C), from a recipe of mostly my own design - (click for link to recipe on Hopville). Dead Like Me was a great show. ;) Nothing overly special, but should… more »

Before I get onto the main subject of this post, I just want to mention I took a couple bottles of our first-ever homebrew, a black IPA, to the club meeting on Tuesday and it was well-received. "Doesn't have the typical 'kit flavor'" was said by more t… more »

For years, we've liked quality coffee. We'd been ordering fresh-roasted whole bean coffee from Intelligentsia, located in Chicago. We'd have our coffee within a few days of it being roasted, as opposed to mass produced commercial coffee, which may hav… more »

Last Tuesday, I got my first tattoo. It's healing, so I'm not ready to post a picture yet, but if you have me friended on Facebook, there is a rough picture there. By next week it should be ready for photos. Lizz is getting her second tattoo today, a… more »

Couldn't think of a "B" word for planes. :D My first batch of homebrew is coming along exactly as it should. On Saturday evening we transferred it from the primary fermenter to secondary, drawing a small sample to test for specific gravity. It was… more »

I'm still alive - and we're still planning to do the "CD A Week" project. I've just been taking a little break from the "ZOMG MASSIVE INPUT/INFO COMING AT ME 24/7" world of Twitter and Facebook for a little while. Sometimes it gets to be a bit much an… more »

It's been quite a while since I've written here. Mainly we've just been busy doing a ton of new things, and I haven't had much time to write. That, and to be honest, most of the things we've been doing aren't overly appropriate for discussion on a pub… more »

I haven't written much lately, as there just isn't much "happening." I'm playing Warhammer Online, but there's really nothing "exciting" to write about. I play, it's fun, and things are good. Heh. I'll be doing my future gaming-related posts over @… more »

How's that for an interesting collection of unrelated hashtags!? Well, that's what happens when you blog about everything you're doing, rather than focusing on one subject. ;)I haven't written much lately, mainly because there hasn't been a lot to w… more »

We were approved for adoption via Midwest Boston Terrier Rescue and on Saturday we drove up to Niles, MI and picked up Daisy. :) She and Roxy (and our 5 cats) all get along great, and Daisy seems very happy in her new home. Had her vet-checked yesterda… more »

... other than just general "stuff."It's too cold and windy to ride, so we're not able to do that. It's also too cold to paint, so I've got no new awesome rocket pictures to show. I'm working on getting back into R/C flying, but the items haven't a… more »