The sad facts are:
If the money spent on the Iraq war had been spent on programs, Democrat lingo for helping people, here in the USA then the tax payers of Grand Rapids, MI would have been able to insured 94k children for one year. Or to look at it another way the entire US tax payer base could have insured 170 million children for one year. Instead we have a war that has made the most dangerous terrorists angrier and has cost 2400 families a loved one.
I sure am glad there were WMDs in Iraq to make this all worth it. ¶ 15:14 0 comments
This is not me but my friend Paul Keller. He has been living in China for the past 3 years working for Moan.
Enjoy.
Back from the mountain. Still have all ten fingers and toes, even.
Maybe a good thing you didn’t travel the 9,000 miles for the climb-- we were turned back by ice at about 17,000 feet and couldn’t summit. Sure, still a spectacular experience, but I’ve got to admit it’s a little disheartening to train for months, travel all that way to Tibet, then only make it about 2/3 of the way up the mountain. I was definitely feeling the altitude and exertion when the guides told us we had to go back down, so it wasn’t like I argued a whole lot. The head Sherpa pokes his head in our tent a little after dawn and he’s like: “well, two of our guys made it to the top yesterday… but they don’t think you will.”
“Eh… OK… “
I guess the recent snow and high daytime temperatures turned the last portion of the climb into a treacherous 3-hour hike along an exposed ridge… followed by a 300-meter vertical ice climb. I was a little puzzled because we had all the gear-- crampons, ice screws, axes, full harness. When I asked about it, the one sherpa just kind of smiled and said something like… “rookie”. I never realized that there were differences between crampons and ICE crampons… ice axes and ice CLIMBING axes.
After we came back down, though, the guide school did set us up with a Land Cruiser and this Joe-Cool-Tibetan driver-dude to tour around Tibet. We went quite a ways down the “Friendship Highway” that joins Tibet and Nepal. Everything involving Nepal seems to have “Friendship” in the title somewhere, like China is hyper-sensitive to point out that they’re not at war with the Nepalese.
So my friend Chris and I went through some Tibetan towns, saw the home of the Dali Lama and the home of the Penchant Lama, lot’s of monasteries… and in general tried to avoid any Public Security Bureau checkpoints. Which was actually pretty easy-- I guess Tibet has really opened up in recent years. The worst trouble we had came from a stodgy old lady at the desk of a government-run hotel. It’s kind of funny that their such sticklers about all these arcane document and authorization laws… yet they run a blatantly illegal whorehouse in the hotel “sauna”. Ahh, China.
What’s up back home? How’s Kate’s gestation coming along? Is she craving pickles?
Well, I’m off to India tomorrow. I’ve been delaying this as long as possible, but now it’s D-day. Or, “I”-Day, as it were. My intestinal track is already a little tore up from something I ate in Guangzhou yesterday… doesn’t bode well for a week in India.
Well the Singaporean lady who’s managing the Irish (!) bar I’m in just walked through and told everyone to “F*ck Off!”. Looks like my free wireless has come to an end.
Lemme know what’s up…
Paul K.
¶ 18:02 1 comments
Follow this link over to video.google.com to hear the fermentors at work.
Just my way of bringing homebrewing to the interweb. ¶ 12:39 1 comments
After brewing on Friday night and mashing in the keg it became obvious that the "big spoon" was not sturdy enough to handle the mass of the mash anymore. The Hefe IV 10gal required 24lbs of grains and over 10gals of water in the mash tun. That makes for over 100lbs of "weight" in the mash tun and only the plastic of the big spoon to mix it with.
I had seen online people selling mash paddles. Until I moved to the 10gal batch I saw no need for these, but after the last two I started to look at these a little closer. Most want over $25 for one and then of course shipping. There are two prevailing designs: one that is made of wood and doweled together and the other made of wood and looks like a large needle eye with a handle. After looking for a while I realized that it would not be hard to make the dowel shape out of a single piece of wood like the needle design. This would give all of the advantages of the dowel shape without the disadvantage of being doweled together.
So here it is:
¶ 20:20 0 comments
But a nice thing to do while it rains and rains and rains is make some more tasty beer. I was able to persuade Digennero to join me again in brewing so I did not have to do it alone or drive out to Muskegon just to make beer.
After the fantastic results of the Hefeweizen IV back in January and the fact that the keg is now nearly empty I decided that 10 gallons of this recipe would be a great way to start the summer. This would be the first time that I would be attempting 10 gallons here at home. The last 10 gallon batch was at Chip's, where he is fully equiped to handle the size of the kegs.
This got off to a fine start. I had cracked the grains the night before and started the yeast. I once again did a step mash to help convert the 6-row malt. I hit all of the temp marks thru the mash and as I was sparging I took a pre-boil gravity measurement. Good news...I was on target to have plenty of alcohol. After the boil and the chilling it was apparent that I had either lost more water during the boil than I had expected or I had not pulled as much wort from the mash tun as I should have. Thankfully, I sitll had the gravity. So while only 8.5 gallons came out of the boil kettel I was able to add 1.5 gallons of cold water to bring the volume up to the expected level and maintain the gravity that is required.
Now, 16 hours later the two fermentors are bubbling away and everything looks like it is going swimmingly.
By the way....sorry for the long delay in posting. ¶ 14:04 2 comments
But the hills, mountains, and views are spectacular.
If you have been to Vegas and are looking for the Vegas experience, do not go to Reno.
If you are looking for skiing and some gambling...Reno may be right for you. ¶ 00:04 4 comments
