The Kingdom is Shaping Up

 I've been doing some work to my kingdom lately.

For one, I just put up my hop trellises.  The goal was to not have to buy any lumber or hardware; instead just using scrap pieces that I had in the barn, and although they aren't exactly beautiful, they're functional.  Come late summer I'm hoping to have hop vines hanging off of the deck, and come fall to be hopping my brews with the freshest, handpicked, homegrown hops.  This is going to take local beer to a whole new level.  I'll be enjoying fresh brewed ales while lounging under a hop vine.  It's an experience, really.  If you're one of those people who claim to actually enjoy your little Miller Lights, it's just too advanced for you, so go put on a pink button-down and watch Entourage or something.

Anyway, the rest of the place has really taken off.  I feel like I'm a traffic director for mother nature sometimes.  Back in the summer of '08, I said fuggit' and bought two bullfrog tadpoles from a garden shop down the road.  Evidently one was male and the other female, and now there's at least a dozen bullfrogs in my fish pond.  It's cool to hear them at night and everything, but I need them to sack up and cut back on the mosquito population.  More on that in a moment.

I'm all for some of the simple pleasures in life.  If you want to see some discovery channel type action, just stand still in my yard for a few minutes and let it unfold.  The other day I was watching two lizards fighting along the edge of a pond for a few minutes.  After a bit, two eyes appeared in the water right below them, and a frog leaped out trying to grab one.  Unfortunately he missed, but how awesome would that have been?  For that brief moment, it was like I was a little kid catching anything that moved down at the crick.  That's right, we say "crick" instead of creek in Pennsylvania.  If you didn't catch frogs and snakes growing up, you missed out, so go do it this weekend.  Especially if the snake is shaded with light and dark browns in a camouflaged pattern; be sure to go after that one.  Anyway, all of this commotion has attracted the newest member of the group, Reeves:

Reeves is a shitty hunter, but I still like him.    Maybe he just didn't have any role models growing up.  Instead of sneaking up on the bullfrogs, he just slithers right up to them like he's approaching a buffet.  As far as I know he's batting zero, but he may have a few notches on his belt.

The chain will probably carry on further from here.  I'll try not to be surprised if the hawk scoops him up one day, but I hope it's not for a while---the bullfrog population is getting out of line.

Since the frogs haven't seemed to do much damage on the mosquitoes, I've decided to take it a step further and build a bat house big enough for about a hundred bats.  Why sit there in reactive mode, swatting away and showering yourself in deet, when you can call in the cavalry?  Own it.  Turn the hunters into the hunted.  One bat can eat 1000 mosquitoes every hour.  I'm trying to figure out where to put this bat house, and at this point all things are pointing toward right up on the back of my house-house.  Jensen is less than thrilled, but she's still cool with it.

Aside from that, it's officially wedding season again, and by year's end I believe we'll have been to another 6 weddings.  That's 5 in 2010, 6 in 2011, and another 6 in 2012.  Three beach trips lined up within the next month or so.  Life doesn't suck.

Blowing Rock

Just took a trip out to Blowing Rock, North Cack.  It's a small town in the Appalachian Mountains, about 3 hours due west of Raleightown.  Been meaning to get out here for a while now, especially since it's an easy drive and a beautiful place.

The first day there we checked out the old town, which spans for about a quarter mile. 

On Saturday, our plan was to head to Grandfather Mountain, about 15 miles southwest of us, but upon arriving we learned that those dirtbags wanted like 20 bucks just to drive up to the ledge, so out of spite we carried on down highway 221.  The drive up there is pretty wild.  You are winding up a mountain at ridiculous angles.  I couldn't take my car out of third gear or I'd lose ground.  The bends are so sharp that you just sort of hope that there aren't any cars in the opposite lane, and if they are, you just hope they know what the hell they're doing--there isn't a guardrail-- just air, and a steep drop.  This kind of thing doesn't bother me much, but Jensen made a few comments about it, and that was all I needed to jerk the wheel toward the edge every few minutes to keep her on her toes.

Then we hit the Blue Ridge parkway.  This was the first time I'd ever been on it.  It's known for being the place to ride if you've got a motorcycle, but being that I sold mine 5 years ago, the Sube would have to do.  The Blue Ridge parkway isn't some big highway; it's a small, narrow two lane road, with a max speed limit of 45, and it winds up and down through mountain passes.  Perfect for enjoying the view.

We stopped a few places to check things out, and found hiking trails that led to some pretty cool views.  Here's one that looked out over miles of trees and hills:

  Down the road another 15 miles or so we found some trails that led out to a big waterfall.  It's a shame it wasn't warmer out- the water was crystal clear.

 




The Cherokees called these mountains "The Great Blue Hills of God." 

At night the moon just hung right out over the sky, like it was dangling from a string, just above my head.  When it came out the second night, I planned on taking a pic of it, but forgot.  In retrospect, I'm glad I forgot:  camera phones weren't meant to capture this, and it would never do it justice.  Now I don't know about what goes on in others' minds when they look up and see this, but if conditions are clear and quiet, I always think back to what things must have been like before "modern" civilization and science--before we knew what we know now.  I can see how people conjured up ideas of inanimate objects having life.  In fact, sometimes it's easy for me to convince myself that the moon is not just a rock, but a living thing, coming out to watch over everything each night.

This trip, I also discovered the Mountain Limp - it's the often subtle, slight limp or dragging of just one's leg, while everything else looks completely normal.  Ever see some hilljack yocal walk with a slight gimp?  Well that's it.  I saw a few of them, but the best example was the one lugging himself into Food Lion in town with his larger-than-life son, and let me tell you, his son may have had the most graceful Mountain Limp on this side of the Carolinas. I didn't think to take a picture of it, but I guess that would be rude.  Then again, so is talking about it.

Once in a while, it's great to get outta town and not have it be a big weekend of partying and debauchery.  When this Sunday came around, I was actually recharged, instead of vise versa.

On a side note I just ordered my hop rhizomes; I'll be growing my own hops for my craft brews this year.

Catching Up

It's been a busy few months to say the least.  I'm a creature of habit, and I got out of the habit of jotting things down, so there's been a long gap here.
I had some photos laying around from when I disappeared from society to the Outer Banks in November.  I didn't get a full two weeks in like I wanted, but I've making up for it now in February.

Floating back to November~~~

Whenever I get the idea that I want to head to Nags Head, I have to go immediately.  I was coming off of a weekend of total debauchery, the most of any wedding on the circuit the last few years, then had to run a local seminar for work, drive to Atlanta for another meeting, then drive back the following day.  I arrived back in Raleigh around 9PM, and almost left for Nags Head at 10.  I decided to have patience, and bumped it back a few hours to 4:30AM.

Leaving early in the morning is practically a ritual for me.  It's only a three hour drive through eastern North Cackalack.  By the time daylight breaks, I only have an hour to go.  That way I get to see the very first light onward, and I'm heading due east the whole time, right into it.  Ever been to Eastern NC?  Well the whole damn place looks like this:

Pretty much nothing but soybean fields and factory farms.














Nags Head never disappoints in the off-season; chilly, windswept, and grey.

Having the Jack Dog along is a must.  Mattafack, I don't even know if I'd want to come out here for these trips if he couldn't.  He goes everywhere with me here.  At night he's on full guard and if he hears a bump or loud rattle from the wind, I hear a low-pitched, deep growl, or warning bark.  Here's the large guy doing his thing by the water.

That's his expression for being really happy...the same expression he uses for every other emotion, including frustration, anger, contentment, deep thought, exhaustion, and that one where you know there's absolutely nothing going on in his head.

Each sunrise is a fresh start.  Everything is quiet and calm--not even the wind is up yet.  It's the time when all in the world seems innocent, as if it hasn't yet been corrupted by the chaos of everyday life. 

 
Anyway I paddled out and caught a few waves.  I'm usually out with others, which I love doing, but being alone is fine as well.  Sometimes it's eerie being out in the middle of winter, without even another soul on the beach- the water is cold, often rough, and foamy.  If anything it makes me appreciate the warmer months, where I'm not confined to a wetsuit, and I don't get ice cream headaches every time I duck a wave.
I always tell my coworkers that if I'm paddling out early in the day and not on the 4PM conference call, that mother nature has won.

At night, I let Jack out and while he roams around, looking for the perfect place to take care of his business, I stare up at the sky.  If you look up here on a clear night, you forget about how cold it is.  I had no idea there were even that many visible stars.  It's like stepping out into a theater.  You can see the milky way streak across the sky.  There's something very humbling about the night sky without light pollution.  I'm not kidding when I say it nearly knocks the wind out of me.  I could sit out there and watch it every night for the rest of my life.

I've been trying to figure out the feeling I get when I'm here, and I think I'm finally onto it.  My family has had this place since I was 13 years old, which is over half of my life.  Homes, aside from being shelters, store memories.  Each time I'm here, I can practically see a film reel of the last 14 years of my life.  Not so much in terms of vacations or time spent here, but more so the chapters of my life that they represent.  As strange as it sounds, I was talking about this same concept before with my friend Rollen, who also plays guitar.  We were talking about how difficult it is to sell old guitars, even if you don't play them much.  They all represent different time periods of my life.  I've only sold one of them, and it was to my best friend's dad.  Even that was difficult.  I've got acoustics laying around everywhere at home.  As your boy Bill Shakespeare might say, "though this be madness, yet there is method in it."


I found this picture from home over Christmas.  I had to put it up somewhere, but figured it would be trashy to post on facebook.  As you can see, it's ok for a man to wear an apron, as long as it's a badass apron that gets your point across.

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.