Lord of the Manor

Just got back from a wedding down in Charleston, SC - we had an awesome time.  Charleston is one of those cities with a lot of history, considering it's been settled since the colonial times.

The wedding site was pretty incredible.  After riding our bus through the private, gated road, cutting around giant trees draped with Spanish moss, we arrived at a huge plantation-looking home.  Right outside this home is where the reception was held.  There was a nice fountain, tables set up, and the place backed up to a lake.

After seeing the small sign that read "Caution:  Alligators" I spent a large portion of time looking for one of those things.  Turns out one came by to check out the action, but he just sat there with his head sticking out of the water.  I'm starting to think that unless you are dangling a piece of raw meat in front of them, alligators are pretty boring.

But that's not what this is about.

Jensen and I ventured in to check out the house later in the evening and it was pristine.  The place must have been several hundred years old, and smelled like clean, seasoned wood.  As if it were meant to be, I rounded the corner of one room and discovered the library.  Even though I was enjoying a beer, which along with any type of clear liquor is strictly prohibited for this sort of thing, I had plenty of scotch in my system from earlier to deliver a good Lord of the Manor face:

I dare someone to try to top this.  The stars were aligned.  Look at the perfect, aged hardwoods.  The bookshelves covering the entire walls, even the books were aged to perfection.  Most are of concepts and tales that the feeble minded would never understand.  Aside from the background environment, the keys to delivering on the Lord of the Manor are a proper lean, preferably away from the camera or other simple folk who may be in the room, proper attire, and the kind of smile that says "I'm only smiling to appease the peasants who are asking me to smile."  If done well, even your friends and those closest to you will temporarily want to jaw you when seeing you like this.  Mine would at least.  I don't mean to toot my own horn but I'll rate it A, and if I had been holding a scotch or bourbon, I would've scored the A+ all day long.

But on a more serious note, I had a blast in Charleston and met some great people.  I have a lot of fun at these weddings, especially when the bride and groom seem like honest genuine people - I may not know them as well as Jensen does, but they certainly seem to fit the bill.

Brew Day

If you like craft brew, you might find this interesting.  If not, grab you a high life and hit the back button.

I've been doing a lot of brewing over the last 2 weeks or so and have about 7 gallons of beer sitting in the closet, waiting to be bottled.  I think I've finally been able to hone in a few recipes that I've been working on--an American pale ale and a newer one, an oatmeal brown ale for the fall.

Even though there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes with hitting exact temperatures, and chemical reactions and what not, I wanted to outline the process as a whole.  I find it really interesting, as do a bunch of other dorks in this world, but then again I find pretty much everything interesting.  If there's something out there that I don't know much about, I want to know how it works, why it works that way, and how I can possibly do it.

Anyway I'll leave out the small details and explanations that make me want to "talk like thisch when deschribing thingsch" and just give the overview.  I'm no pro by any means, but I can say with confidence that within the next few batches of beer, if not the ones sitting in the fermenters right now, I'll regularly be making some damn fine brews.

I find it relaxing to do.  I fly solo on this.  Besides, even if I wanted help, I wouldn't get much.  One source of potential help was laying out:

          The other was laying in:  









So you start with some crushed grains, or malted barley.  There are countless different kinds, and you can pick any combination to give your brew different flavors and consistencies.  It's kinda like cooking with food.

You'll also need some hops---these rabbit turd looking things below are hops in pellet form - condensed so they don't take up too much space.  There are tons of varieties of hops; some create more bitterness than others, some are citrusy, others are earthy, some taste kinda like a pine tree, others like grapefruit, I'm sure some are downright terrible...just haven't found those yet.


Then you've got the yeast.  Like hops and grains, there are many varieties - all produce different beers and different styles.  Some are pretty neutral, while others produce disgusting, spicy Belgian beers.  There are also wild yeasts that mother nature sends flying around outside--you can even collect those and brew with them.  I hear a lot of them make terrible beer, but once in a while someone gets something good by keeping an open cup by a window sill.  That would be pretty awesome.

Anyway the point is that you can literally create your perfect beer around what you like and the cool part is that if you do things as seen below, it's the exact same process that craft breweries use, just with different equipment...I'm sure they aren't using gatorade style coolers picked up at Home Depot and outfitted with ball valves and  braided hoses.  But maybe they are.  Doubtful.

First things first, I heat up water to a specific temperature depending on what kind of beer I'm making.  Generally anywhere from 152-155 is where I want it to end up.  Then I pour the water into this Home Depot cooler that I converted into what's called a mash tun and mix it with the crushed barley.  Once mixed, this is called the Mash.  The hot water converts starches from the grains into ferment-able sugars that the yeast will eventually eat.



Once all of these are converted, after about an hour usually, I drain the mash tun, and flush more hot water through the grains, called the sparge.  This washes out all of the excess sugars.






After that, I bring it what's now called the wort, to a boil.  It's at this stage that you put in the hops.  Hopping earlier on in the hour-long boil creates up-front bitterness to the beer, while hopping later in the boil gives more hop flavor.  I'm kind of a fan of both.  I loves me a good hoppy pale or IPA.







When that nonsense is all said and done, I cool the whole pot down in an ice bath until the temp of the wort drops down to around 75, put it into a fermenter, and pitch the yeast.  The yeast, over a period of the next week or two, eat the sugars, and spit out alcohol and CO2.  It sits here for a few weeks before getting bottled.  Three to 4 weeks after that, you better be thirsty.

You can pretty much adjust any of the variables above, so there is obviously a lot more you could read about.

Welp, that's that.

Wedding season has officially begun.  Jensen has like a hundred thousand friends, and they're all getting married at the same time.  Off to Charleston, SC this weekend.

Grey Suits and Storms

Haven't updated in a while because of work and leisure.  In July I spent a week on the Outer Banks.  The family was down there and I made sure to join them, given that I only get there once during the summer time each year.  Even though it's not my favorite time of the year to be there (mainly bc of crowds), I had nothing to complain about - warm water is something I never take for granted.

The town had been talking about it for years and finally pulled the trigger on a huge project to dredge and pump sand onto shore to build the beaches back up.  I talked to one of the workers who explained the process - they had to take over 2000 samples of sand from offshore to match the type found on the beach.  Then they dredge it, pull it onto a huge (looked to be 150+ ft) boat, get to about 200 yards offshore, and pump it to the beach through a huge rusted pipe.  It was pretty interesting to watch.  A maintenance guy from the realty company said people have been complaining that it ruined their vacation, but the last time I checked, there has to be a beach to enjoy the beach.

I'm not kidding when I tell you they've probably added 60-70 yards of beach, and we desperately needed it. I'm thinking it may have smoothed out the bottom a bit more, because the waves were pretty glassy all week.  When we got there on Saturday they were a good 5-6 ft and fairly clean.

Check it, a good dose of man fighting back at nature.

I always drive south when there is no surf in front of the house.  South of where we are, it's basically 30-40 minutes worth of wildlife sanctuaries and reserves, and not a lot of houses...the area immediately south of the Oregon Inlet is Pea Island.  Here you can be the only person on the beach.  I stopped at a few random paths through the dunes to scope things out.

I had to take a picture...it was just too damn inviting.  There's always this feeling of anticipation, just wondering what to expect when you get to the open beach.













In this case, not much--no people, just a few birds.  Awesome.

Some (or all) of these pictures may look the same to some poeple, but to me they are very different.  It's a snapshot of everything going on at that moment.  I could tell you what the air felt like, everything going on in my head at the time, what I did that day.


We also just got down to Carolina Beach for a few days with some friends- Bill, Brittany, and Jeremy.  Turns out that an hour or so before we started toward the beach Saturday, some girl got bit by a shark--nothing serious though.  Then we're about 5 miles south at Fort Fisher and as we're pulling up, a guy saw our boards and told us that the "grey suits" were out that day.  It's kind of an old fashioned term for sharks; "men in grey suits."  Anyway he had been out about 20 minutes before we got there and said he saw a 6-7 footer jump clear out of the water about 100 yards from him.

Everyone kind of looked around at one another, pondering whether or not to get in, but we all did.  The sharks are out every day and look how often something happens - pretty much never.  Besides, locals were speculating that it was a sand tiger who bit the girl, and the one that jumped near this guy was likely a spinner shark....they're garbage.  It would be one thing if a 10 foot bull shark ripped someone's head off, but a little nibble on the foot never hurt anybody too badly.

And allow me to let you in on a little secret:  when there are dolphins in the water, it doesn't mean there aren't sharks.  In fact, it's the opposite - there are likely more sharks.  Dolphins and sharks largely feed on the same things.  Sorry if I just ripped off your comfort blanket when you are swimming at the beach, but I calls 'em as I sees 'em.


The guy who pulled up his truck next to ours had a few extra boards, so the others with us got to ride as well.  It was like a good old fashioned surf camp.  He even gave me a leash he didn't need anymore. It's always great running into such friendly people.

Anyway, I'm not sure when I started this post or when it will be dated, but today is August 26, and Hurricane Irene is set to make landfall on....you guessed it....the Outer Banks.  This is a big storm, and big storms have historically shifted and created entire inlets there, not to mention the damage that affects people.  We'll see how it turns out, but something tells me mother nature is going to reclaim a good bit of that new beach in the picture above.

Fixing Dents with a Hairdryer and Aerosol Duster: Myth Busted

Before:

 The internet has many clips of guys fixing dents with these two simple household items.  They hold a hairdryer over the dent for about 2 minutes until it's really hot, then flip a can of keyboard duster upside down and spray it over the dent.  Since the metal is quickly heated and cooled, it expands and pops out the dent.  It's usually followed by a bunch of cheering.

I decided to give it a whirl considering I have nothing to lose.  The sube is riddled with dents, has about 100k on it, and I love it so I plan on driving it til it dies.  I had to grab something at Target so picked up a can of this stuff as I walked by.  You need to give your birthday to buy a can; apparently kids have taken a liking to the it too.

We tried it on two major dents.  Mattafack, these were the first two that my car took after getting it.  I had my jeep down at school for 2 years and it never got a scratch.  I had the sube at school for two months and some girl side swiped it in the parking lot and it got nailed by a football.  The football one I mostly pulled out with a plunger right afterward.  The rest of the tiny dents admittedly came from parking under the huge walnut tree at J-town senior year...the one I always make fun of the Pat monster for.

Want to see the pic of the dent after?  Just look back up at the first picture.  Let me know if you try it and it works for you, but I'd save all of those fresh cans of keyboard duster for 15 year-olds who can't find any beer.

Yep It's Summer

By far, some of the best things about this time of the year are the storms.  Here in the Cackalack we go through cycles where it'll storm nearly every day.  Since moving into my place, it's been standard procedure that when the sky darkens during the day or you hear a rumble in the distance, it's time to head out to the carport and set up a chair, or two or three depending on who's en casa at the time.

This year on the evening of July 4th, nature decided that she'd take over the fireworks for the evening, and delivered a storm that sent little kids screaming and dogs barking.

Even the Jack dog enjoys watching a good storm roll in.  I have to keep an eye on him though; if one of the neighbors pulls into their driveway, Jack's got no qualms about running over to their house in the pouring rain to say hello.

Now this isn't complex, but here are some pointers:  It's important to get out there before the thing hits - that way you get to see and feel the changes as the storm approaches.  Sort of like a song building up I guess.  Then if you are lucky, it gets violent as it passes right overhead.  All you need is a chair, a beer if you'd like one, a dog if you've got one.  If you want to go total redneck you can go suns out guns out and lose the shirt, or in this case rains out veins out.  Doesn't really matter how you do it.  You could even sit outside in the open and get drenched.  Just know that if your neighbors see you doing this, they'll be sure to triple check that their doors are locked before going to bed every night.


Anyway check out the storms, and you'll thank me once it becomes routine.  And don't be dicking around on your smartphone or anything; just sit back and accept the free therapy.

By the way the surfboards off to the right should be getting some heavy use in a week and a half - headed to the outer banks for an entire week!  Even the big dog is excited- he's been doing balance training (found this old picture on my camera):











If it's anything like last year, I'll be seeing this again as I head up the walkway to the beach:


I snapped this about a year ago.  You can see the waves rolling in above the grasses, a real rarity during the summertime in Nags Head.  Last year it was consistent all week long.  The only downer was that the water temp was 58-62 because the winds were blowing onshore (chief).  I remember getting my first look at the water and thinking "why are all these idiots wearing wetsuits, it's July!"  I got in and my question was quickly answered.

Might not be oyster season, but it's everything else season! Needless to say I'm pretty pumped.

Laying Coal

I like to think I'm not as ignorant as I used to be back in high school and parts of college.  I also like to think that one of the things I've been able to develop more of is compassion.  That being said, this stuff is just hilarious.

This was introduced to me by my friend Bill, who recently purchased an F-250 Turbo Diesel, as seen on one of my prior posts.  He's going to convert it to run on fry oil within the year; that way we can scorn at Prius drivers for being so ecologically irresponsible.  Anyway, with a turbo diesel, when you mash the gas and the engine revs up, but before the turbo kicks in, the engine spews a bunch of exhaust out the back.  Some rednecks' trucks emit huge clouds of it.  Said hayseeds refer to it as "laying coal" among other things. 

I don't have anything against bicyclists on the road (accept when they're on a two lane road with a 45mph limit, going 25mph, side by side so they can chat while cars have to cross the double yellow, risking life and limb with oncoming traffic).  So maybe I do sometimes.  Check out this clip from the web.  Some yokel took laying coal and went professional with it.  Deadly accuracy - hysterical! 

Your Local Creepy Asian Market

If you like trying different kinds of foods, I recommend finding an Asian market nearby. My local Asian market is fortunately only about a mile away from me, and it's enormous. Not surprisingly, it's got a very clever and interesting name: Grand Asia Market. The place is huge. It's the size of a regular grocery store, but there's nothing regular about this one. It's an experience every time. There are aisles and aisles of foods that I have no idea what they are, all the writing is in Chinese, no one speaks English, the smells are downright terrifying, and the prices....fantastic!

I thought I was aware of what most vegetables were until I strolled through the produce section...anyone know what the hell a garanga is? If you are a serious carnivore, they've got just about every organ from every animal you can think of....livers, feet, gizzards, kidneys, frozen blood, intestines, and I even found pork uterus. What someone does with that I have no idea. Given that we are below the Mason Dixon, my guess would be deep fry it, throw in a side cup of ranch, and serve it to hungry rednecks.

I like to go into this place with an idea of what I'm shooting for, because after about 15 minutes the smell starts to get to you. They have about 15 different kinds of whole fish out on ice, octopus, crabs and even live tilapia and trout. It smells like a fish market. Not only do they have durian fruits, but they even have durian fruit flavored popsicles. Take a minute to google a durian fruit - you'll find plenty of videos of people trying to eat them, some vomiting before it even hits their lips. I want to try one, but I won't go it alone. Let me know if you're down and I'll pick one up. My favorite line from the wikipedia article on durian fruit is:

"... its odor is best described as pig-shit, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock. It can be smelled from yards away. Despite its great local popularity, the raw fruit is forbidden from some establishments such as hotels, subways and airports, including public transportation in Southeast Asia."

Anyway, they've got nori sheets, 5-10lb bags of sushi rice, and just about anything else you could think of to make sushi rolls, including the bamboo mats. The picture quality sucks because I didn't care how everything looked on the plate and it was taken with Jensen's Blackberry, but it sure tastes good, and for about $12 I made somewhere around 7-8 rolls. This one was mostly tuna, avocado, and cucumber, with different sauces.

Quail eggs on top? Sure, they've got them too.

A computer-printed label above the tuna steaks says "sashimi grade" in parenthesis, so who knows if it's really sashimi grade. We've been doing this for a few years now though and people only got sick once, so I can't say I'm too worried about it.