I like this time at night on HBT

[beaksnbeer]

In the event of a zombie apocalypse, I intend to be the one guy who can rebuild 90% of the crafts needed for a functional society.... Yup, brewing is one of the top trades.


I've never made a knife before. I figured I'd try out patterns on sheets of mild steel. Then once I've got a form I like make some out of knife steel, with a little tempering. If I enjoy doing that, I'll look at doing some more serious forging. My current equipment is limited to a belt sander and a grinding wheel. Well, that and a sledgehammer whose head I use as an anvil and a couple hammers.


I don't plan on playing with layer forged steel when/if I've gained enough skill to make it worth while. It's beautiful, and maintains an edge without suffering from the brittleness of straight high carbon steel. I just can't see wasting it learning how to make knives.


I smoked 12 chicken thighs and 7 pork ribs today. The chicken thighs then got smothered in sweet baby rays bbq sauce with some added liquid smoke, and cooked in the oven for an hour. Then 10 of them went into the freezer, the last two are dinner. All of the uncooked, but smoked, country style pork ribs went into the freezer. Should be some good food this week. Apple wood smoke in the 100$ electric smoker. Good stuff.

So, I've got a horrible headache today. I took a couple Excedrin migraine equivalents and drank a whole bottle of wine. I can still tell my head hurts... That's a bad sign. I should probably lay down now. I'm hoping my headache goes away after a couple hours nap.

Peace be with you my brothers and sisters of brewing, forging, and cooking.

Saw blades make good blanks we go through a 1/2 dozen or so 14" circular blades a month so I have quite a few just need to mark out a few more blanks. Need to hook up the plasma cutter once I make room in the garage again. Sorry about your head I can't have any alcohol with a migraine or I curled up in a closet with my head in a soft cooler full of soft cold packs.

 

[Leadgolem]

Saw blades make good blanks we go through a 1/2 dozen or so 14" circular blades a month so I have quite a few just need to mark out a few more blanks. Need to hook up the plasma cutter once I make room in the garage again. Sorry about your head I can't have any alcohol with a migraine or I curled up in a closet with my head in a soft cooler full of soft cold packs.

Huh, that's not a bad idea. Both the saw blades and the cooler full of cold packs. I don't have any worn our saw blades atm.

Honestly though, there are some benefits of having migraines. Some ****** nozzle at work was doing a demo where he would push on some pressure points in somebodies arm and they would be incapacitated by the pain. He did it to me, and I smirked. Shocked him so bad he blanched, let go, and stepped back. I reminded him that some people can deal with the pain, and that kind of stuff isn't going to drop them. It's just going to piss them off. I think he was getting some kind of perverse pleasure out of watching people practically collapse in pain.


I should have brined the chicken before smoking it. It's good, but a little low on the flavor index. It's also slightly dry, not bad since the collagen rendered, but drier then I would consider optimal. A little salt and sugar absorbed into the flesh before smoking would have fixed that. Mental note for next time made.

 

[Dan]

Edit:

Deleted post. I'm a freaking drama king.

As you were.

 

[Leadgolem]

I remember the vultures from when my grandmother died. They can burn. Better that somebody you know will appreciate things will get your stuff then one of them.

 

[Leadgolem]

Aloha spambot.

 

[Leadgolem]

Hmm, the spambot has ceased to exist. That's nice. Thanks be to, whichever mode nuke it.

I finished off my rhodomel. Now I'm drinking some applejack I made almost a year ago. It's surprisingly good, even if I was stupid and put a tiny bit of salt in it. Maybe I should make another batch of cider just for this... Hmm. Yeah, my head still hurts...

Hey Emjay, any suggestions? I'm flat out of ideas at this point.

 

[Thunder_Chicken]

I'll just leave these here:

 

[LabRatBrewer]

Just had a bomber of a two year old mead. It was very good. Now I need to wait awhile as a fear its going to gang up on me. I'd like another, but Monday is looming.

 

[opus345]

Just had a bomber of a two year old mead. It was very good. Now I need to wait awhile as a fear its going to gang up on me. I'd like another, but Monday is looming.

I hear you about Monday creeping up. But it was a great holiday and weekend. Just working my way through a glass of very young blueberry mead. Cheers LRB!

 

[Leadgolem]

I just took a beer to a neighbor down the way who was mowing his lawn at 9pm. I figured if you are mowing your lawn that late, you could use a beer. He was nice, though he barely speaks English. He introduced me to two other neighbors, who then introduced me to another two. It turns out I'm not the only one who doesn't like the neighbor across the street.

I hope things in the neighborhood warm up. The immediate neighbors don't speak much English, the neighbors over from that do though. Plus they didn't mind translating tonight. It probably helps that the beer I offered the Spanish speaking neighbor was a dos equis. Since I don't drink beer, I'm not sure what that says about me, but it seemed to be good.

 

[grathan]

Just turned off the IC water on an iipa at 2am. Can't wait to try out the new speidel tank. Seems much friendlier than a glass carboy does. Used a new manifold in the mash tun today, the efficiency was actually worse than the bazooka that floats up 1.5" in the cooler. Oh well, perhaps address low %60 mash eff next brew day.

Third brew day in a row with lightning storms and rain (what's up with the weather?). Bugs are having a field day in the brew shed with this warm humid weather. Pipeline is getting dangerously low after a vacation week.

 

[Dan]

Guitar players. Help? Being left handed is either something a person conquers or is plagued by. I'm left handed which seems to mean my right hand is more coordinated than my left. I'm trying to learn the guitar. Can I restring my guitar so the strings are in my right hand and strumming in my left? I've figured out threts, or is it threats? High means the bottom strings? Low means the top strings? I haven't really a clue

It just feels more natural if I'm pushing on the strings at the neck of the guitar with my right hand. But if I do that the guitar would be upside down. String wise.

Ha ha.. my son was trying to teach me some knife fighting skills he learned in the MC. I went at him with my left hand (wasn't a real knife) I totally threw him off balance. He said, Dad can you go at me right handed?

Lefty curse. I can't claim, because I don't know for certain, I just know how I am. I do a lot of stuff right handed. I write with my left hand, use scissors with my right hand. I'm better shooting a pistol with my right hand then left. Baseball bat I'm a lefty. I think I'm better as a right handed person at some things but really don't know. I don't excel in anything that takes coordination.

When I was younger, I was pretty good on the high boards, like, you know, diving and doing acrobatic crap into a pool. There was no left or right about that. Pretty much straight forward. I'm still pretty comfortable with doing that even if it has been years since I last dove. Muscle memory maybe.

What I was wondering is, can I restring a guitar backwards or upside down is what I meant? Pretty sure I can but would appreciate a go ahead from somebody who understands this dilemma

Nice thing about typing though, there is no right or left handedness to it.

 

[grathan]

Just bought my daughter right-handed gold clubs for her birthday Sat even though she writes and bats and throws lefty. Probably shouldn't have bought them off the internet in retrospect.

Didn't Jimi Hendrix put the strings on backwards because the left-handed guitar hadn't been invented yet?

 

[Thunder_Chicken]

 

[Thunder_Chicken]

 

[Subsailor]

My wife and I have designated Friday nights as Date Night and for the past few weeks, I have been taking her fishing on JBER (Fort Richardson and Elmendorf AFB) here on the North side of Anchorage. It is mostly stocker Rainbow trout but we have been hitting a few Kokanee and Grayling. I am teaching her to fish and she is having a great time, in fact, whenever we have a slow moment at home she likes to say "let's go fishing!'.
The other cool part about this is the amount of wildlife we are seeing on the bases. This past Friday night, we watched 2 about 100lb grizzly cubs on the should of the road, just playing and eating shrubs and grasses for about 45 minutes - never did see mama but we kept inside the car and eyes and ears open for her. The friday before last, we watched about a 350lb grizzly running down the main gravel road, his ears were pricked way up, fur standing up and he kept looking over his shoulder like he was scared of what was behind him. Never saw what had him spooked but considering that area is right along the Eagle River Grizzly Highway, it had to be a bigger bear.
Lots of moose, porcupines, beaver, loons, ducks, swans, geese, eagles and coyotes. Saw a couple of wolves up the railroad tracks away fromthe artillary trail we were on.
We are very much enjoying our last year in Alaska.

 

[CreamyGoodness]

Thought of you yesterday Sailor. My father called to tell me a bear cub (I think we have browns around my dad's place but I wouldnt swear to it) got into the garbage. Dad chased him off banging a pot with a ladel and got a very dirty look from mama who was in the woods.

 

[Thunder_Chicken]

Subsailor - I have to get up there to Alaska. Just spent a week up in northern NH, listened to the coyotes howling at night and watched a herd of deer sniff through our campsite at night. It's wonderful to go to a place where you can actually see the stars at night. A little perspective of the day-to-day pains of your life relative to the grand scheme of things is always a good thing.



You're riding a spinning mote of dust in the void. Never forget that.

 

[Subsailor]

There's a young grizz on East side Anchorage that has figured out how to get into the "bear-proof" garbage cans. He simply tears them off of the anchors they are bolted to in the ground and when they fall over they are actually easy to open.
I amazed some bear in the past years hasn't thought of that but it's finally happened. The powers that be may have to devise a new way of installing these cans because now that one knows how to do it, it won't take long for the rest to start figuring it out.

We have quite a few grizzlies in our area, 2 packs of wolves whose territory seems to slightly overlap. There was a lynx in our neighborhood last fall and there are 1 male and 2 female wolverines with territories here.

 

[Subsailor]

Subsailor - I have to get up there to Alaska. Just spent a week up in northern NH, listened to the coyotes howling at night and watched a herd of deer sniff through our campsite at night. It's wonderful to go to a place where you can actually see the stars at night. A little perspective of the day-to-day pains of your life relative to the grand scheme of things is always a good thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFpeM3fxJoQ

Hi TC, I know what you mean about the stars. We have spent many nights out on the tundra out around Bethel looking up at the night sky, particularly in the Winter and being absolutely amazed at the immense number of stars visible to us with no background lighting to interfere. Of course, we have witnessed some dazzling Northern Lights displays as well, that I don't believe any photograph could ever do any justice to.

 

[Leadgolem]

Happy Monday HBT crew. No headache today.

I've seen a black heron, some raccoon, and a fox or two this year for sure. I think I saw a hawk too, but the angle was off so I'm not sure.

Lets see, I finally got the calking done in the bathroom. It took almost exactly 3 tubes, which is what I estimated and bought. Then I unhooked one of the down spouts behind my house. Hooked up flexible downspout material, and ran that into the rain barrel I made last year. It's a big garbage can with a 1/2" ball valve installed in the side near the bottom. A little like a mash tun. Then I cut a hole in the lid for the downspout tubing. I managed to do that accurately enough that the lip on the tubing actually hooks under the lid and keeps it tight. It's tight enough that I don't think I need to worry about mosquitoes. The piece of flexible downspout I bought was just barely long enough. Half an inch shorter and I wouldn't have been able to get it to mount in the barrel lid like I wanted. I tried to replace the screws on the handle to one of my cabinets. I discovered that the problem wasn't the screws being stripped, which they also were, but that the threads in the handle are stripped. That's annoying. I'm going to epoxy some threaded rod in the holes and put a nut and washer on the inside of the cabinet instead.

How has everybody else's Monday been?

 

[Leadgolem]

 

[Thunder_Chicken]

Happy Monday HBT crew. No headache today.

Hooray! I get migraines when the weather acts up and it is a real pisser.

How has everybody else's Monday been?

Good. I'm still on semi-vacation (teaching 3 nights a week through the end of August), so my evenings are starting around 11AM. We're getting a lot of heat and humidity so it is good beer-drinking weather. Pretty mellow.

 

[Thunder_Chicken]

Of course, we have witnessed some dazzling Northern Lights displays as well, that I don't believe any photograph could ever do any justice to.

I've seen the Northern Lights, and you're right. Some things a photograph will never be able to record. Have you ever laid out on the grass at night and looked at the stars, and felt compelled to grab a hold of the ground out of fear that you would be flung out into space? If you haven't...keep trying.

 

[Leadgolem]

I've seen the Northern Lights, and you're right. Some things a photograph will never be able to record. Have you ever laid out on the grass at night and looked at the stars, and felt compelled to grab a hold of the ground out of fear that you would be flung out into space? If you haven't...keep trying.

Keep trying what exactly.

 

[BobbiLynn]

Day 2 of no berry picking due to a ****ed up toe. Kept ice on the foot last night and swelling is down. Pretty sure it's just the toe. I tried to pull it straight and do the popsicle stick and mailing tape thing, but that was too painful.

Last night I spent the night at my best friend Laura's house because hubby was irritating me. Told his family to go take care of him. He knew my foot was throbbing but constantly, do this, can you get me that. can you help me with this, help me with that.... No, I can't. My foot ****ing hurts and needs to be up and on ice. Laura and I had a blast. We got drunk on vodka and decorated her kitchen with origami flowers. Melted candle wax for the centers of them. Last night it was so beautiful, she hung them all over the walls and cabinets. This morning, it looked pretty gaudy and hideous, IMO. But she thought it was still beautiful, probably she woke up still drunk from last night.

 

[Thunder_Chicken]

Day 2 of no berry picking due to a ****ed up toe. Kept ice on the foot last night and swelling is down. Pretty sure it's just the toe. I tried to pull it straight and do the popsicle stick and mailing tape thing, but that was too painful.

Busted toes suck, but they do get better. As long as it isn't severely dislocated it will be OK. I broke the hell out of my big toe a couple years ago. It was slow to heal, but it did heal. Tape it to its neighbor as best as you can and don't mess with it. It will get better.

Last night I spent the night at my best friend Laura's house because hubby was irritating me. Told his family to go take care of him. He knew my foot was throbbing but constantly, do this, can you get me that. can you help me with this, help me with that.... No, I can't. My foot ****ing hurts and needs to be up and on ice. Laura and I had a blast. We got drunk on vodka and decorated her kitchen with origami flowers. Melted candle wax for the centers of them. Last night it was so beautiful, she hung them all over the walls and cabinets. This morning, it looked pretty gaudy and hideous, IMO. But she thought it was still beautiful, probably she woke up still drunk from last night.

It sounds like you need more vodka Bobbi Beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder, or something like that.

 

[Thunder_Chicken]

Keep trying what exactly.

Feeling your small role in the universe. If you are not completely awestruck by your smallness, keep trying.

 

[Subsailor]

I've seen the Northern Lights, and you're right. Some things a photograph will never be able to record. Have you ever laid out on the grass at night and looked at the stars, and felt compelled to grab a hold of the ground out of fear that you would be flung out into space? If you haven't...keep trying.

Yeah, that's a very weird feeling, my wife gets very dizzy and even laying on the ground looking at it doesn't help her. It does seem almost like your looking into the bottom of forever!

 

[Thunder_Chicken]

Yeah, that's a very weird feeling, my wife gets very dizzy and even laying on the ground looking at it doesn't help her. It does seem almost like your looking into the bottom of forever!

You are. You're doing it right!