Bitten by the home brewing bug

No, that's a stupid title. That title implies that I somehow 'discovered' the joys of brewing beer, or brewing beer in my kitchen, or that I've never seen or participated in the process of brewing beer before. I have. I've brewed my own small (11 gal) batches at this cool brew-your-own place in Ohio called Buckeye Brewing, but then the owner sold it, and I never went back, and then I moved... I've made wine at home, so I know what a carboy is, and an airlock, and how yeast converts sugar into alcohol in this miraculous process that, ultimately, ends up meaning so much to me.

I've always been into beer. Well, not always. I've been into beer since I discovered real beer, beer that had been brewed with taste - with the exquisite experience that accompanies the enjoyment of a true beer - rather than profit motive in mind.

Unlike, perhaps, some people, I can't pinpoint the exact time and place of this epiphany. There was in fact no real epiphany. I do remember the first time I had a beer good enough, remarkable enough to remember. It was the very late 90s or very early 00s, and one of my promoter friends had booked Paul Oakenfold to play at what was essentially a club night. One of the stipulations on Oakie's rider was that a chilled case of Hoegaarden be provided backstage for, one would assume, his exclusive consumption - perhaps to improve his beatmatching skills. Regardless of the intent, myself and another dude known only to me as 'DJ Kevin' proceeded to help ourselves to the contents of the case. Hey, they weren't drinking it. Oakenfolds set was done, and it hadn't been nearly as good as the beer. We finished the entire case between us, and the promoter glumly informed me that it had been a $48 case of beer.

I remember thinking, "Hey, that might actually be worth it."

I didn't suddenly cultivate a taste for Hoegaarden, though. I was far too poor, and kept drinking the same things I'd been drinking before: PBR and The Beast. Hey, if you're going to waste your money on domestic beer, you might as well not waste your money on their advertising campaigns as well. Budweiser is swill. Inoffensive, 'drinkable', and certainly consistent, but swill nonetheless. This is a commercial product mass-produced in vast quantities using the cheapest possible ingredients, in the least amount of time.

It is at the opposite end of the spectrum where the beer connoisseur inevitably finds themselves. As Budweiser is to McDonalds, so the craft brewery is to the individual restaurant, a singular creation of a single chef, each dish tailored to a unique taste. Or, one would hope.

Somewhere amid this glow of idealism lies the true state of craft beer in America. From pseudo-craft startups launched or taken over by major domestic breweries, to legitimate microbrewery success stories that sell millions of gallons of high-quality beer ever year, there's a lot to choose from. Some of it fantastic. Some of it rather awful. The rest lies between.

The thing is, nobody in the region (as in, no other micro-brewer) seems to share my particular taste in beer. I feel that there is a void that must be filled. I want things exactly my way. When has it ever been any different? Of course, for now, I have to content myself with research and design spending, and test marketing. Naturally.

Logging off another user, remotely

So, for some reason someone left root logged in to the physical console on one of my Linux servers (Debian 4.0 on x86, if you must know), probably to see if the system was up after a power event. Well, of course it was up. I don't like root being logged into the physical console for obvious reasons, so in case I need it in the future, the appropriate incantation is:

# skill -KILL -t tty1

You're welcome.

Snowy Sunday project: Heat molding my 32 Forecasts

Nothing to it.

A $40 heat gun, some cardboard tube, a thermocouple, an hour and a half, and three beers. I was going to take my boots to the nearest Zumiez today, and simply take the path of least resistance. I'm sure the heater that 32 gives it's distributors does a fantastic job of heating their liners. Unfortunately, I called them and their sales representative chirpily informed me that while they sold 32s they 'don't do heat molding', and none of their locations do heat molding, sorry. Which didn't seem plausible, but after saying 'Really?' and 'Are you sure?' in an incredulous voice a couple of times, I gave up. Hell, I have a heat source and a basic knowledge of thermodynamics. Who doesn't?

The key was ducting the hot air into the toe of the boot. I used a handy 1.5 inch cardboard tube that had a previous life as the center of a roll of wrapping paper. If you just blow heat into the top of the boot, you won't get good airflow through the liner, and the heat just stratifies in the top of the boot. You need to get the air down into the toe, and then it will heat the rest of the liner as it flows out of the boot. I heat soaked the liner at about 220F for 15 minutes. I cut a notch in the tube about 6 inches from the end so it would bend a little more gracefully.


Not the most elegant solution, but cardboard is a very poor conductor, and I wasn't worried about the tube singing the liner. Ultimately it worked very well.

I simply can't believe the level of fit I have now. I'll have to actually ride it, but it feels incredible. I could barely get my feet into the boots prior to treating them.

Preview: Bridgestone Blizzak WS-60

Snow tires aren't exactly cheap. This set of 15 inchers ran just under $800 with shipping, wheels, and tire pressure sensors. Actually, only about $350 of that money went towards tires. So, they're somewhere in the realm beyond all-seasons and budget performance tires, and well below a serious performance tire.

The real question is: how much would you pay for traction? In my case, since I plan on making 50 or more trips into the Cascades this winter, I thought the expense was justified. You're not going to feel too proud of your thriftiness as you slide towards the guardrail on a snow-covered mountain pass.

I'll come back here and actually compare them to the Bridgestone Turanzas they replaced - hopefully after this weekend.

Panorama: Playa Funchi, Bonaire

This was taken about a year and a half ago. I was just going through old pictures and noticed that I'd taken a panorama at this particular beach (playa). This beach is at the northernmost tip of the island of Bonaire, and is a part of the huge nature preserve there.

I've never seen such large parrotfish, anywhere.

Text Message Spam: the Other White Meat

If you're a human, and you own a cellular handset, you've probably encountered text message spam. Text messaging is enabled on all plans by default, and virtually every provider runs an email to SMS gateway. So, in my case, with T-mobile, my phone can receive email at [my phone number]@tmomail.net. Spammers have to be salivating over this: compared to a standard dictionary attack on an email server (sending mail to every possible permutation of common names at a domain) this is much simpler. Call it a phone-book attack. A spammer can simply sequence through a given set of numbers in a known area code, or, to throw off reactive filters, a random set of numbers in an area code.

Unlike email, though, SMS messages generally cost the user of the handset, whether it's a fixed per-message charge, or a part of a monthly text message package. This, combined with the audible alert that comes with a handset text message, make this a particularly infuriating problem.

If you have T-Mobile, though, you're in luck. Just register your phone on their website to create a profile, if you haven't already. Once you're logged in, choose 'Send a text message' from the 'My Services' menu pull-down. On the right, you should see a link for 'Change my phone e-mail address'. Click that, then enter something unique and memorable as your new email address. Any further emails sent to the SMS gateway will have to use this address to reach your phone.

We'll see if this solves the problem for me, but it looks promising.

The End of the Great American Love Affair?

You know which love affair I'm talking about, of course. No? The love affair with the automobile, the car, the horseless carriage, the... SUV. Ah-hem.

America has been obsessed with cars since their introduction at the beginning of the 20th century. There has always been a good market for domestic manufacturers, even when the rest of the world came to ignore their eventually bloated and shoddy offerings. Much like the brewing industry, car manufacturers in America suffered from mass consolidation. Storied brands were purchased by larger companies and turned into a trim level. The energy price shocks of the 1970s robbed the American car of it's final distinguishing feature - horsepower - and left it with nothing. During the 70s and 80s American consumers were forced to suffer in underpowered, poorly made, characterless boxes. Ruthless management styles at the top of the by now huge corporations brought us vehicles designed by committee to fall apart just shortly after they had been paid off.

The 90s, however, brought us the Ford Taurus and an increasing parade of cars that took cues from European design and manufacturing techniques from Japan (and sometimes whole engines and cars from Japan) and gave America reason to hope again. Of course, this hope manifested itself as the SUV phenomenon. American consumers have proven repeatedly that, given the chance to buy something bigger for only a little more, they will always opt to super-size. Car manufacturers, led by Ford, rode this phenomenon to it's logical extreme, and well past that, with monstrosities such as the Excursion and H2 tipping the scales at a mere 4 tons. Sedans and hatchbacks went the way of the passenger pigeon and triceratops. All this weight required massive amounts of power, and efficiency gains won by things like overhead camshafts, quad-valve combustion chambers, and electronic fuel injection were quickly put to work motivating these huge hunks of metal and plastic. As manufacturers in Japan looked toward the inevitable future, the US behemoths outdid each other with monuments to unsustainability, not even paying lip service to the idea that manufacturers are indeed capable of driving the market.

This is what we want to save? This is what my hard-won tax dollars will be used to keep afloat? I know there are many arguments to be made for keeping these companies alive, and I actually do think it's a good idea in the short term, at least - but something within me is deeply angry.

I feel that these companies have taken enough from the American people. They took the automobile and crushed the life out of it. Yes, they are poised to bring it back, and there are signs that the morbidity is broken. We may get muscle cars with Japanese efficiency and European handling. If this does indeed happen, it will be a breakthrough - but it's not going to erase three decades of terrible cars.

I'd like to see the executives of these companies punished somehow. Perhaps they should all be forced to drive a 1985 Reliant (three glorious speeds) for the rest of their lives. I'd also like to see a new American car - not just an exotic, an actual car. I'm certain it's possible. Other countries have small marques, why can't we?

It's time to reassess the terms of this relationship. American car companies: I'm not happy.