Well, the new building owner just knocked on my door, and gave me his address. Turns out that he is not planning to condoify the building! I wish he'd said something earlier; I would have been able to stay here. Oh well, it seems this is what's meant to be. I am really looking forward to being in the new place, though, and having a real kitchen for once!
I've been learning a new system called Ruby on Rails; it's a pure object-oriented programming language with a web application interface. It is supposed to be able to do the kinds of things you get with all the cool google web applications like gmail and google maps. I was following the instructions on http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/01/20/rails.html and having a difficult time getting it to work, since the instructions are written for MySQL, and not Postgresql. It would come back with an error about column id not honoring the not null constraint. After playing around for a bit, I discovered the solution. Postgres needs to be given a sequence first in order to automatically fill in the id numbers. Here's the SQL code I used to create the database:
create sequence recipes_id_seq start 1;
create table recipes (
id int primary key default nextval('recipes_id_seq'),
title varchar(255),
date date,
instructions text);
This causes the ID numbers to be inserted correctly.
Brew #16 has been bottled! I got 27 bottles of Cabernet/Shiraz blend, (and one 500mL bottle) which should be "ready" in 1-3 months. I tried some; right now it tastes something like a Beaujolais Nouveau. The bottling and corking went very smoothly except for the little filler thingy; a couple times it got stuck---in the open position! Fortunately not much wine was lost. I'm not sure if it's the sediment that got stuck, or the divot in the bottom of the wine bottle, which caused the problem. I might use a Phil's Filler that I inherited when a friend left the hobby next time.
So on Wednesday I was at Galway Arms, and complained to one of the servers (Liz) that I had to move and was trying to find a new place. "Oh, did you know that Ian (the bartender) works for Apartment People?" He took down a few bits of information and said that he could get me something like that. Jack looked at my list of "Must Haves" and said that I was asking quite a bit.... Yeah, perhaps, but for the amount of money it costs to live someplace around here, I want to really like it.
Well, the first place we saw I got to meet the landlord. He owns the building, and you can tell immediately that he really cares about the place. It has a very nice courtyard, and all the wood inside has been sanded down or replaced. He replaced all the pipes, and all the wiring. The kitchen even is quite new (that's very important)! The previous tenants had stayed there for three years, and were only leaving to buy a condo---another good sign.
The specs: two bedrooms, one main room, all with south facing windows. Large closets, a back porch, bathroom closet. Oh, it has a dishwasher. I've never had one before... well, I did, but all that one did was spray the food off, spray it back on, then dry it onto the dishes. So I never used it. I think this one will be better. And, there's a very large tree in front of the windows. During the summer, the light is diffuse---this will keep the building cool. During the winter, all the leaves will be gone and the light will be quite strong, right when it will be most welcome. Those of you who know me well will not be surprised to learn that it's on the fourth floor, the top one available in this building.
Here are some pictures; I didn't get to take pictures of the inside. You'll just have to visit me.
| You are a Black Coffee |
 |
I went to Ravinia with Ji to hear music inspired by Don Qixote. The music was great, and the weather was perfect for a picnic in the park. During the picnic, she insisted that I take this picture and ask people what they think it is. :-)
This is an morebeer.com kit for the Extra Special Bitter. No modifications were made to this recipe, mainly because the last two heavily modified versions I gave to my bartender didn't go so well. So, I decided to make something more normal that she might like. Heidi, John, and Laura came over to watch. John is starting to get into the hobby, so we were hoping to give him an idea of how to get started. The brew went very well; no surprises, no panicked contingencies. Note that times are given in terms of time remaining for a 60 minute boil. Date of Brew: July 1, 2005 Estimated Date of Bottling: July 15, 2005 Ingredients
