Personal Ramblings 2.0

Today I spelled holiday like this: hildaosy.

   Look, it's Friday. Can I just go home ~now~?

   ...

It's called a "Wife Cake". I just hope it doesn't contain peanut oil...

...when will I give another update to my LJ? Thank you for the question sir. :)  I have the following to say in response.
 
   I had lost my desire to update LJ for a while. There are various reasons that I'll keep to myself, or that I will discuss in private with friends such as those I expressly told I had an LJ account; friends I've known for at least over a year...  Let it suffice to say that LJ has caused more problems and pain than I thought it would, with a friend, with my life, undo stresses, etc.

   I never thought this would ever be the case, because I believed that LJ was almost completely ~innocuous~. What an innocent (but more like naive) view. It turned out I was wrong, and I have learned my lesson.

   I know others read this, not just my friends. To them I say "hello there; welcome!". As well though, I say "don't bother leaving a reply to any of my posts UNLESS you are a rational human being with an open mind and don't have ulterior motives which you readily conceal from me."

   ...

   I'm certain that I'll post again soon, but I'm going to meter out carefully and closely what I put on LJ from now on.

   See, I've been hurt personally in the not so recent past by someone who read my LJ and who, again, will remain nameless because I respect privacy. However, I don't respect their misguided and ~uninformed~ tirades, their inability to allow me to respond back to their accusations let alone defend myself, and their childish behavior. CHILDISH behavior. You may ask where that came from but it's, at best, of meager importance now if of any importance at all; really.

   I know that I can truly feel confident knowing I will not lower myself to anyones level of response; I will continue to raise myself above and use measured consideration when acknowledging. I will keep my head and level patience at issues that attempt to befall me. And I will push forward, enjoying my life and not letting anyone's bad karma, bad luck, and unfortunate circumstances affect me, *my friends*, or my future endeavors.

   So, you ask, why the jeremiad? (Heh, look it up; it's an actual word, and I've always wanted to use it.) The reasons are that I was hurt unduly, treated unjustly, criticized slanderously, and I had no other way to get out my frustrations; at least not to my satisfaction. So there. :P

   Now that this mess is *entirely* out of my system... back to the drudgery of work.

   Cheers, and if it's 5 o'clock somewhere out there, have a beer for me until I can have one myself.

lol

I've been busy, haven't had the time to post, but I have sooooooo much I could talk about. Someday, SOMEday, I'll post again. lol...

...just someday I'll update my LJ. I've got enough to say. But it's too late.

   Off to bed. :)

Wait, I totally miss posting on Halloween?! WTF?!

Sick... :(  going home.......

....when i'm entering Livejournal user names as links, LJ now puts in auto-carriage returns? It's highly annoying...

So, I've decided to change how I post to LJ.

   There's always so much going on, and to that end, I've not been able to post as much as I want to LJ. So, from now on, I'm posting the "Best Of" Jeremie's life. lol

   Ok, maybe not all of the best of, or maybe not even the best, but I'll post what I can make out of my day-to-day.

   In that spirit, last Friday I was going to do an all-grain brew but I couldn't seem to nail people down to come help me out (that's okay, everyone has a busy life -- I can understand that). Instead, I brewed a malt-extract version of Pliny the Elder, an Imperial IPA. I'd been talking about it; finally did it (in some respect). Jenn invited me over to brew at her house, so I put her to work. I think it went well. I did forget to put mash hops in the mash (damn), but I added them as flavor hops instead. Also, I should have added a pound of corn sugar in the boil (oops); didn't get to that until yesterday. That's fine; I just boiled up some water added the sugar, cooled it, and added it. The yeasties have bene happy chomping on the sugar I provided already, so I'm thinking they'll have no problem with the new sugar. The Rogue PacMan yeast I used is supposed to be highly attenuative and alcohol tolerant so I'm not worried.

   I hit the Horse Brass 30th Anniversary party on Saturday and become a S.N.O.B.; can you believe I wasn't one already? ~grin~ They had the witbier on tap that was brewed by Chad Kennedy of Laurelwood as a favor for the OBC. Remember I mentioned a while back there was a compo between six teams of OBC brewers, the winner would have their recipe brewed by Laurelwood for the HB30 party? This is it. It was a little heavier, but oh was it fantastic! :D  You may still be able to catch some of this brew if you hit the Horse Brass or Laurelwood, but you'd better hurry. It's VERY limited edition...

   Mike had his 40th (!!!) birthday that night, so we celebrated with food, beer, and wine; a festival atmosphere was felt by all. ;)  Happy birthday again buddy! (he doesn't read this, so...)

   Sunday was virtual Halloween! Went with kuddlekai, peloquyn, and mphasis to see The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D Edition -- LIMITED RELEASE!!!!!!!!!! I don't REALLY need to say this, but drop everything and go see it, OMG... GO SEE IT NOW!!!! It was incredible! :D  Later on, KK and I went to a couple of haunted houses. It doesn't matter which one you go to, you should just go and be scared. :D  Trick or treat!

   I don't think I'm going to be able to rack the beer that's pretty much done fermenting until Wednesday (that's the "Hines Pale" for Rachel and Jonathan), oh and I have to bottle my other mystery beer (which may go on with the name "Reckless Abandon Ale", we'll see), or add a more attenuative yeast to it -- haven't decided yet. Then there's the slowly souring "Purity IPA", :( :( :(, and NOT in a good way like a Lambic -- that I NEED to fix somehow. I'll either dump it, ...or wait, maybe I'll add a puree of raspberries to that one, maybe with some more yeast. I can still save it! ... thinking, thinking...

   In any case, I need to get back to work. :(

   Cheers!

I just got another of my favorite compliments today, and from an unexpected source, for an unexpected reason...



:)

Can I just say something?

   THANK GOD IT'S FRIDAY! (Okay, it's no longer Friday, but when I wrote this entry, it was; so be nice.) A big resounding "FINALLY" bellowing from me like some wildfire out of control. This (last) week was ~hectic~! But, I think at actually ended well. :)

   So, (last) Monday I went to the PDX Brewers meeting at McMenamin's Cornelius Pass Roadhouse. It was pretty good; I mean, I wasn't expecting a whole lot of people, but I actually got a lot of conversation in. I spoke to a couple of guys that are in my weekly BJCP class; they're new to me, so their names currently escape me. Spoke to one guy about a special type of wort pump he put together with pieces he bought from Ebay (uses magnets; complicated stuff). Spoke to my pal blackspiral66, he's a member of both PDX Brewers and now the OBC; I met up with him for the meeting beforehand. Spoke to club boardmember Mike Besser, who runs BrewDad.com (a site I HIGHLY recommend if you want to know where to send your homebrew for entry into local homebrew compos). Really nice guy. He went (AND I'M SO JEALOUS) to the Great American Beer Festival; only one of the BIGGEST, BADDEST beer competitions in the world. Something like 1700 beers were on tap there......... ponder that for a moment...  Ok, come back from the light... ;)  Also saw another guy there that I pulled beers with at the PIB. Doug or Dave. DAMN it I'm bad with names. Anyway, there were others there too. They had a name-drawing for a few simple prizes. I was a good evening to be sure. Will I join? I depends. Let's see how things pan out with the OBC.

   (Last) Tuesday saw PAYDAY!!! I paid BUTT-loads of bills, felt a lot better about it, and still have money left over! (Overtime is goooood.)

   Wednesday was, of course, my BJCP class. This week it was English Brown Ale and Strong Ale . ~WHEW!~ What a night. Let me just say that tasting beer can take quite a lot of skill. "Yeah, riiiiiight. Open mouth, put glass to lips, tilt, swallow, repeat..." WRONG! Remember, in the class, we taste all (or nearly all) of the beers we talk about. Beer contains, what? You guessed it. ALCOHOL. Beer is, in all it's glory, a benficiary of the wonderment of this fine naturally producable compound. Beer has been called the Nectar of the Gods (or rather, of the Goddess ... Ninkasi) some say, and  a bummer by others. Regardless of how you get it though, alcohol does the same thing, right? Makes ya tipsy, then more tipsy, then stumbly, then more stumbly, then goofy, then goofy-stupid, then just plain stupid, and then of course, eventually, unconscious. What a beer taster MUST remember is that you need to be able to judge the beer you're tasting, and REMEMBER to WRITE DOWN what you've experienced. That means to be able to hold your alcohol. Not really an easy thing to do sometimes as I have seen. So, at the end of the night, you guessed it, a bunch of slurring and posturing about beer in general. blah-blah-blah. Don't get me wrong, I prepared. I drank lots of water and tea in the day, ate a good full meal, and made sure that I watched what I drank. I think I did pretty good. No drunk-dialing. ;)  Also, Bill, the class teacher, did a good job of balancing an evening of considerably heavy alcohol beer with lighter alcohol beer. All in all, it was a good class. Got to try some English Barleywine against American, and realized that I much prefer American (for the hops).

   Thursday was a free night. ............ :)

   Friday, went to see Cirque Du Soleil's Delerium. Incredible. Wonderful. Musical. Artistic. Creative. Dancey. I could go on extolling praise for the show; let it suffice to say that I had one of the best times at a Cirque show as I ever have. And I've seen myriad Cirque shows: Saltimbanco, Dralion, Alegría, Mystère, Varekai, Zumanity. Oh to work for them...

   Saturday was beer making day. I made a new Pale Ale for Rachel and Jonathan's party next month. I varied the special grains and hops to try something different. Hopefully it'll work. Fortunately it's been very cold recently so I've been able to ferment the beer at a much lower temp than I usually do with my other beers. Meaning: much fewer estery flavors and aromas! Summer's gone; those flavors can come back next year. Also on Saturday, missed my friend Jace's yearly Halloweene bash. It's been yyeeeaarrrrrrs since I've been to one. Need to hit one again one of these years. He's the kind of guy who LOVES the macabre and is a really good musician. So think funky, dark, gholish music playing in the backround with all sorts of various rubber heads and foam tombstones, spider webbing and black lights, fog machine, alcohol (natch) all that stuff everywhere! Good times.

   sunday Sunday SUNDAY! See the Amazing Roloffs at their farm in Helvetia, Oregon! (lol) And get some REALLY nice pumpkins. :D It was great fun, and we got to meet most of the family, including Amy, Zach, and Jacob. They were all REALLY busy, but they seemed to be completely acceptant of their new life and how much it's changed since the TV show debuted. Yes, they are the Roloff's from the TLC show "Little People, Big World". "But hey," as they said, "it's only a TV show; it hasn't changed us". Before going there, went to the Rock Creek Tavern and had a surprisingly good Chicken Schnitzel sandwich with a glass of Ruby Ale, one of the only beers I'll drink at McMenamin's. I'm particular.

   Monday, went to the Horse Brass and met up with Jenn. Yvette was working (at the bar) so she could only come over at various times. I paid my cash to her (as she is the vice-pres of the OBC) for my ticket to the Beer Bus trip later on next month (YAY!). Can't wait. In the bar, the dartboards were all being hogged, so we just talked shop (beer) instead. Later on, we went to the 24 Hour Hotcake House (a.k.a. the Original Hotcake and Steak House) off Powell and had breakfast. If you've never been there, when you get the urge for an omelette and/or pancakes, dude (and dudettes), go there first! You won't be disappointed. I'm naming them the BEST place in town to get an omelette, and the BEST place in town to get pancakes. Actually, I name them the BEST PANCAKES IN THE WORLD... period. They must add crack to the mixture... ?!

   Yesterday, I went out with a friend who wishes to remain nameless in my LJ (wishes respected). Let's say her name is, umm..., "S". S and I went to Salvador Molly's. OMG, their Jerk Chicken sandwich is t3h b0mb (read: the bomb -- 'leet speak, baby)! And did you know... banana ketchup exists?! It kicks ass!

   Today, I am a bug testing MADMAN! So I have to get back to work now.... ;)

  ( You're welcome

blackspiral66. )   :)

 

I got busy this weekend. Update forthcoming...

LJ entry coming tonight! After ...... Delerium!

Lots going on, much change, no time to update LJ........

And this is where I want to go!

   Now, if I could just find 1400 generous people to donate a measly $100 a piece............










   (they'd all get back "free beer" in return...............)

   ;)

Occluded                           October 16th, 2006 @ 12:25 p.m.
-------------

Obtuse, understand.
   Puzzled, I understand.
      Unbeknown, now I understand.
         Lists in the ground and on a page; and now I understand.
Too late, but not, but so.
   Misfortune, in ways.
      Sad missing.

Something, there is, bitter and sweet in this; saved of pain, as it was or could have been.
Something, there is, painful in this; absolution unneeded as a necessity.

Beyond the why, to the because, the pertinent dissolves.
Again, I reserve my beauty; I am innocent but damned.
Innocence be damned.
And now I understand.

To the future I look with certainty; mark this -- certainty.
And, again, I reserve my beauty, listed into a cause.

You are still there, and I am still here;
   for the time being
      
         occluded.

Well, last Thursday, it was a good party at Hair of the Dog. :)

   I brought the salad I described earlier; which worked out quite well ... and was barely enough. heh. I got a chance to sample, again, from the taps which are hooked directly to the kegs in THE cooler Alan uses to lager his beers. What was on tap:  Adam, Blue Dot Imperial IPA, Doggie Claws, Fred, Greg, and Rose. All for free; one of the perks of being in the OBC and the party being invite only. :D

   "After the party was the afterparty!" (lol, from a few raps songs..., I'm dumb, and oh so white....)  Went to the Horse Brass (natch) and played darts with Jennifer and Yvette; good times. I came in second to Yvette's first place. :P heh. The beer I had there was Dry Hop Orange; a pretty good hybrid style beer. Not quite an IPA, but very tasty -- a good mix of hops.

   Saturday was the Gourmet Group: Belgium. I premiered my wit beer, "Nit-Wit", a Belgian Wit with lofty aspirations. I think it's pretty decent for a first attempt. I wish I'd fermented it at a lower temp (too many esters), but still it works. :)  I got pretty good report, even though it wasn't to everyone's liking. Just too sweet (malty) for some beer drinkers, but right on for main flavor (coriander and bitter orange). Tried bottling it; that was a slight bit humorous. I guess it wasn't cold enough when it hit the bottles because it foamed up something crazy as it quickly warmed; I'm going to have to do a lot more research in bottling from keg to bottle without priming. The way I'm doing it just isn't working for me all that well.

   Anyways, along with the dinner, the food was fantastic. Helki made this pork-rosemary-parsley-apple main entree (GREAT stuff, excellent flavors -- I slied the apples for that ... lol), and I made (the majority of) Belgian chocolate mousse -- our dessert to be served later ... sinful, quite nice, yet a slight bit lumpy due to the chocolate not being well mixed into the egg ruban, but still a good pull. Other dishes were Kate's apple-buttermilk soup topped with brown sugar (nummy), red vinegar cabbage, Belgian-style oysters (you'd have to try them to believe them), ...... I know there were another one to two things but they currently escape my mind. Anyway, the dinner was great! All this served with a nice Lindemans Framboise Lambic at dinner (oh yeah.... you've gotta -- it's Belgium fruit lambic [sour beer]).

   Sunday brought RAIN and the yearly Portland Nursery's Apple Festival. Why did we go on such a rainy day? Was it the only day we could go? ......... so anyway. Saw this REALLY cool band there called Klezmocracy, a very talented and musically competant five piece jazz band. When I walked up, they performed a song called something like "Dance del Fuego" (something like that). It was about 10 minutes of kick ass, 11/8 time soloing and artistic genius. Beauty, truly. I signed up for their mailing list; doesn't happen that often. :)  Anyway, if you hear of them, GO SEE GO SEE! Good stuff!

   The rest of Sunday was filled with hot chocolate and TV. A really nice and lazy day. Necessary because of the pain in my back... again.  :(

   I just want to make it through the week. Tuesday is my payday and I CAN'T WAIT!!! I need to brew something!!! This time, I'm bottling the damn beer. Kegging is a pain in the ass for bottled afterwards.  :(  (I know; I already said that.)

   Pac-ly the Elder; it's gotta be. This week.

I received one of the COOLEST compliments I've ever gotton, and I got it just today from a coworker.

   I was told that I am the most tolerant person they know.

   "Yeah man; people can try real hard to F' with you, and you just let it roll right off your back like you've got waterproof feathers".

   :)




quack quack quack

Whatever.

   You know, I'm tired of trying to figure out what the hell I did. I'm not going to cry in my beer about it. So F' it. I have wiped up the spilt milk. Good times come and go; but some people just decide to throw them away inexplicably or flush them down the toilet. So, whatever.

   Moving right along...

   Tonight is the Oregon Brew Crew potluck meeting at Hair of the Dog. I am to bring salad for 20; I'm thinking spring greens with cranberries, slivered almonds, and a raspberry vinagrette. Sound good?

   This season is bringing colder weather, much better for making cleaner beers. I can't wait. Since I've been broke as of late, couldn't make beer anyway. Next paycheck should resolve that.

========

   If the person that threw away our friendship reads this,... next year's RaspBeery batch will still be waiting for you.

   I hold no grudges; I've learned it's a childish waste of time, pain, and thought.